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It’s safe to say that Juan Soto hasn’t lived up to that $765 million contract just yet. While the New York Mets have sprinted to MLB’s best record through the season’s first month, their new star outfielder is struggling at the plate, slashing just .248\/.374\/.396 with three homers entering play on Monday. Sure, it’s only been a month; but when you’re making more than any other baseball player ever has \u2014 and you’re doing it in New York, of all places \u2014 you know the sort of unreasonable expectations you’re walking into.<\/p>\n
And “unreasonable” is right. Talk radio hosts are already washing their hands of the guy. Fans at Citi Field are trying to organize standing ovations as though he’s one bad day away from a nervous breakdown. Everyone seems to have an opinion on what’s wrong with Soto, and just how to fix it.<\/p>\n
Everyone, that is, except the guy signing those record checks. You’d expect Mets owner Steve Cohen to be as on edge as anybody; he’s the one who’s on the hook for paying Soto some $50 million a year, after all. But Cohen is the opposite of pressed right now, and he’s begging Mets fans to follow his lead.<\/p>\n
Cohen was asked about what he made of Soto’s Mets tenure so far, and he didn’t sound like somebody who had anything remotely close to buyer’s remorse. In fact, his assessment of Soto is more or less exactly what it was back in December.<\/p>\n https:\/\/twitter.com\/JonHeyman\/status\/1917011064522477727?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1917011064522477727%7Ctwgr%5E9de3a5fd49f8f637d48a2db31c7375d4c01b1cbe%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffansided.com%2Fsteve-cohen-delivers-juan-soto-message-mets-fans-need-to-hear-amid-ugly-slump<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n “I’m not worried about Juan,” Cohen told the New York Post’s The Show podcast. “He is singularly focused on baseball, he’s a pure hitter. Let’s have this discussion at the end of the year.”<\/p>\n Cohen is of course correct that a few weeks is way, way too little time to change your opinion about a player who’s established himself as one of baseball’s very best over the past decade or so. And he’s also correct to point out that what’s considered a dry spell for Soto would still be considered pretty good for anyone else, and that even when he’s not doing maximum damage his mere presence contributes to winning.<\/p>\n “There’s a lot of subtle things that he does that I really think matter,” Cohen said. “The way that he works a count, the way he makes pitchers throw extra pitchers, really matters. Then he gets on base and Pete [Alonso] can drive him in, and so Pete’s seeing better pitches. it’s very subtle how that works, and you can’t just look at it in a very narrow sense.”<\/p>\n It is in fact not a coincidence that Alonso is enjoying the best season of his career so far; going into a walk year has something to do with that too, of course, but he’s also hitting with runners on far more often \u2014 and getting far more pitches to drive as a result.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s safe to say that Juan Soto hasn’t lived up to that $765 million contract just yet. While the New York Mets have sprinted to MLB’s best record through the s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":57198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"\n