Inside The Mets

Mets star Juan Soto viewed as 'biggest disappointment' by insider

One MLB insider gave a harsh assessment of Juan Soto's New York Mets tenure.
May 7, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (22) gets ready to hit against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images
May 7, 2025; Phoenix, Arizona, USA; New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto (22) gets ready to hit against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the first inning at Chase Field. Mandatory Credit: Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images | Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images

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New York Mets slugger Juan Soto has turned things around over the past week or so after a tough start to the 2025 season.

When speaking about Soto's early season struggles (and a lot of people have been speaking about them over the past month), it's always important to note that expectations and outcomes are all relative to the MVP-caliber player Soto typically is — which is what that Mets paid him $765 million over 15 seasons to be.

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With that in mind, Soto's OPS hovering around .850 through 38 games isn't what fans were hoping for. His home runs had been deficient as well, but that has shifted with him hitting 4 homers over the past week.

Although this recent power surge did not stop The Athletic's MLB insider Jim Bowden from including Soto as part of a May 8 article that was titled 'The 10 biggest disappointments of the young MLB season: Teams, players, decisions to watch'.

Soto was included in a section of the article that was titled 'Big offseason free agents who aren’t yet delivering', and he was listed alongside other big names like Anthony Santander, Willy Adames, Blake Snell, and Corbin Burnes, who all signed huge deals this offseason and haven't been performing well.

However, Bowden made sure to note that Soto being a "disappointment" pales in comparison to these other players, as they are genuinely producing objectively below-average seasons in comparison to Soto, who is just producing below his sky-high standard.

Regardless of what Soto has done to this point, the bottom line is that he has plenty of time to turn things around. And this turnaround seems to be right around the corner, given what he has done over the past week.

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Grant Young
GRANT YOUNG

Grant Young covers the New York Mets and Women’s Basketball for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco, where he also played Division 1 baseball for five years. He believes Mark Teixeira should have been a first ballot MLB Hall of Fame inductee.