{"id":61504,"date":"2025-05-15T07:21:03","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T07:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=61504"},"modified":"2025-05-15T07:21:25","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T07:21:25","slug":"mets-star-juan-soto-makes-major-announcement-on-future-baseball-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=61504","title":{"rendered":"Mets Star Juan Soto Makes Major Announcement on Future Baseball Plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"post-featured-container-id\">\n<div id=\"post-featured\">\n<div>\n<figure><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Juan-Soto-1.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 95vw, 780px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Juan-Soto-1.jpg?quality=65&amp;strip=all&amp;w=780 780w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Juan-Soto-1.jpg?quality=15&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1100 1100w, https:\/\/heavy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/Juan-Soto-1.jpg?quality=35&amp;strip=all&amp;w=1350 1350w\" alt=\"Mets Star Juan Soto Makes Major Announcement on Future Baseball Plans\" width=\"780\" height=\"439\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Getty<\/p>\n<p>New York Mets slugger Juan Soto<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Juan Soto will be spending the next 15 years in Queens after signing a mega deal with the New York Mets last offseason, but announced plans to represent another team next year.<\/p>\n<p>As Fox Sports shared in a post on X, Soto announced that he will be playing for the Dominican Republic in the upcoming 2026 World Baseball Classic. The tournament will give Soto the chance to help his home country rebound from an early exit from the last World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n<div id=\"7db4f10bf86ac8f5ff5f74a087525794\">\n<div>\n<article>Juan Soto announced that he will play for Team Dominican Republic in the 2026 World Baseball Classic<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Juan Soto Looking for Redemption<\/h2>\n<p>As Fox Sports noted, Soto will be looking for a measure of redemption after the Dominican Republic failed to advance out of the opening round the last time he played for his home country.<\/p>\n<p data-v-24ed9219=\"\">\u201cIt will be the second time that Soto plays in the World Baseball Classic, with the Dominican Republic going 2-2 and failing to advance out of Pool D in the 2023 tournament,\u201d the report noted. \u201cHowever, Soto was one of the team\u2019s bright spots, hitting two home runs and going 6 for 15.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-v-24ed9219=\"\">Soto had already hinted that he could be returning to play for the Dominican Republic, saying in March that he was just waiting on permission from team owner Steve Cohen.<\/p>\n<p data-v-24ed9219=\"\">\u201cI might be. I need permission from the boss,\u201d Soto told Newsday reporter Tim Healey, pointing to Cohen at a team practice.<\/p>\n<p data-v-24ed9219=\"\">Though Soto ultimately got the permission he was seeking, Cohen may have been a bit cautious about letting the team\u2019s $765 million star suit up for his home country. Star closer Edwin Diaz was lost for the 2023 season after suffering a torn right patellar tendon while celebrating a win for Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Juan Soto Just Wants to Play<\/h2>\n<p>Soto has helped the Mets jump out to a division-leading 28-16 record this season, despite a somewhat slow start. Soto is falling below his career averages with a .255 batting average and .845 OPS.<\/p>\n<p>Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said it\u2019s difficult getting Soto to take a break, saying he had to convince the slugger to take a day off at the end of the team\u2019s three-game set with the Pittsburgh Pirates.<\/p>\n<p data-mm-id=\"_hfe3vomw6\">\u201cIt\u2019s just an off day. Me trying to take advantage of an off day we have scheduled tomorrow,\u201d Mendoza said, via SNY. \u201cHopefully give him a couple of days. It wasn\u2019t an easy conversation last night when I presented it to him, but I thought it was best to give him today.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-mm-id=\"_hfe3vomw6\">The Mets dropped the final game of the series with Soto out of the lineup, but still won the series and head into this weekend\u2019s Subway Series against the New York Yankees with one of the league\u2019s top records.<\/p>\n<p data-mm-id=\"_hfe3vomw6\">Soto downplayed the importance of playing against his former team, however.<\/p>\n<p id=\"57WB5LITLVCNFHMPG5IURGYMEY\">\u201cI think the Subway Series is just another series where we have to go out there and try to win the,\u201d Soto said in Spanish ahead of his weekend\u2019s series, via NJ.com. \u201cWe have to keep moving forward, forget about who we\u2019re going to face, and just try to win the series because, in the end, that\u2019s what we\u2019re here for.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Nathan Dougherty is a sports reporter covering the NFL for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions and Miami Dolphins. Previously he wrote for the Rochester Business Journal and served as the assistant editor of athletic trade magazines Coaching Management, Athletic Management and Training &amp; Conditioning. He is based out of Rochester, New York, and loves everything football. More about Nathan Dougherty<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New York Mets slugger Juan Soto announced that he will be playing for the Dominican Republic in the upcoming 2026 World Baseball Classic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":61505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Mets Star Juan Soto Makes Major Announcement on Future Baseball Plans - News 365<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/new365.azontree.com\/?p=61504\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mets Star Juan Soto Makes Major Announcement on Future Baseball Plans - 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