Could the Mets Have Taken Down the Dodgers With Juan Soto Last Year?

The New York Mets took the Los Angeles Dodgers to six games in the National League Championship Series last year. Could they have won that series if they already had Juan Soto?

Dec 12, 2024; Flushing, NY, USA; New York Mets right fielder Juan Soto poses for photos during his introductory press conference at Citi Field. / Brad Penner-Imagn Images

The New York Mets hit the jackpot when they landed superstar outfielder Juan Soto, the top prize in this year's class of free agents. A record-breaking 15-year, $765 million deal brought the team Soto's services, with the ROI in the form of on-field success slated to begin in 2025.

Just last year, Soto was suiting up for the cross-town rival New York Yankees. Serving as part of the one-two punch in their lineup with Aaron Judge, the superstar helped lead the Yankees through the American League side of the bracket to face the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Five games later, New York would look on as the Dodgers celebrated their second World Series championship in five years.

While the Yankees only took Los Angeles to five games in the Fall Classic, the Mets took that same team to six games in the National League Championship Series before succumbing to the inevitability of the superstars the Dodgers employ. Now with Soto representing Queens, could things have played out differently in the NL Championship Series?

FanGraphs currently has Soto projected as the starting right fielder over Starling Marte, so we will run with that in this hypothetical rewrite of history. For the playoffs as a whole, Soto batted .281/.389/.538 with four home runs and nine RBI across 64 plate appearances across 14 games. New York played only 13 games in October, but we're going to drill down to outcomes against Los Angeles only.

For Marte, his postseason performance as a whole was solid if not spectacular. He ended October with a .277/.346/.362 line with no home runs and nine RBI across 55 plate appearances, appearing in all 13 games. His best performance came against the Dodgers in the NLCS, where he batted .333/.357/.482 for an .839 OPS and four RBI across 28 plate appearances.

While Soto's best performance of the postseason came against the Cleveland Guardians, he still performed as superstars of his caliber are expected to do against Los Angeles. In those five games, Soto batted .313/.522/.563 with one home run and one RBI across 23 plate appearances.

Marte spent his time batting from the fifth spot in the lineup in the first four games of the series and dropped to sixth in the lineup for the last two. Soto hit from the two-hole in his games against the Dodgers and is projected to fill that spot for the Mets moving forward. We'll use the 28 plate appearances taken by New York's hitters from that spot in the lineup, which were split between Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo.

Having Soto in right field over Marte would make it possible to use Marte as the weak-side platoon bat over J.D. Martinez, who batted only .222/.417/.222 in the postseason. Martinez was able to get on base at a solid clip, with seven walks to only eight strikeouts, but the power outage came at a bad time.

Soto batting second also lengthens the lineup. Where Vientos and Nimmo batted second and third for most of the series (Nimmo batted cleanup in game four with Pete Alonso batting third), they now would have split time batting third, with the other batting fifth, providing better protection for Alonso.

With everything that Soto would have added to the Mets' lineup that would have greatly improved its production, it still would not have been enough to overcome the struggles that the pitching faced against Los Angeles's unit. No game was decided by fewer than five runs, and the Dodgers averaged a total of 7.67 runs per game in the series while New York averaged only 4.33.

At best, having Soto in the lineup could have given the Mets one more win in the series, pushing it out to seven, but the lack of top-tier firepower in the rotation was ultimately the team's demise.

Of Los Angeles's 46 total runs scored in the series, 20 came against the starting rotation in a combined 20 innings. 17 of those 20 were earned, giving the rotation a combined ERA of 7.65. The bullpen, on the other hand, allowed 24 earned runs of the 26 total they gave up across 32 innings. This gives the bullpen a combined 6.75 ERA.

Having Soto in the lineup certainly would have provided more firepower, potentially even allowing New York to score more than five runs per game across the series. But the lack of top-tier pitching for the front of the rotation let the team down in the long run, forcing Carlos Mendoza to turn to his bullpen sooner than should be necessary.

The rotation for 2025 looks to be much of the same, though it now includes Frankie Montas and potentially Clay Holmes. With Soto serving as the face of the franchise and the offensive anchor, things could be more favorable for the Mets in 2025.

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