Making historical past is nothing new for Juan Soto — however this kind of historical past actually is.
In August, the Mets slugger hit 10 residence runs, stole 11 bases and walked 27 occasions in 28 video games.
That made Soto the primary participant in MLB historical past to document a minimum of 10 homers, 10 steals and 25 walks in a single month, in keeping with Opta Stats.
It’s a exceptional feat in its personal proper, nevertheless it turns into much more unimaginable when contemplating stolen bases have been by no means a big a part of Soto’s sport earlier than this season.
Soto boasts a career-high 26 steals this 12 months, greater than doubling his earlier better of 12, which he set in 2019 and matched in 2023.
When he obtained thrown out throughout Monday afternoon’s 10-8 win over the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park, it was solely the second time all season that Soto had been caught stealing.
His September is off to a robust begin, too, as Soto hit a grand slam and a two-run triple in Monday’s victory and completed 2-for-3 with two walks and 6 RBI.
“It’s a show,” supervisor Carlos Mendoza mentioned after Monday’s sport. “Every time he’s at the plate, you want to watch it. It’s pretty special and I’m glad he’s on our team.”
It’s been a roller-coaster 12 months for Soto within the first season of his record-setting 15-year, $765 million contract, however his general statistics are as soon as once more wonderful.
Soto is hitting .257 with 36 residence runs, 90 RBI, a .915 OPS, an MLB-best 113 walks and people 26 stolen bases in 28 makes an attempt.
He’s the fourth participant in MLB historical past to document a minimum of 35 homers, 25 steals and 110 walks in a season, in keeping with MLB.com stat guru Sarah Langs, and the primary since 1999.
Barry Bonds totaled these numbers 4 occasions (1993 and 1996-98), whereas Jeff Bagwell did it twice (1997 and 1999) and Chipper Jones did it in 1999.
“It’s allowing me to do damage, to help the team,” Soto, 26, instructed SNY of how he’s seeing the ball proper now. “If it’s taking a walk, or any kind of way I can do it, it feels really good.”
That is Soto’s third season with a minimum of 35 homers and his fifth with a minimum of 110 walks.
His 12 months has been uncommon within the sense that Soto had an OPS of 1.196 in June — when he was the Nationwide League Participant of the Month — and 1.009 in August, however in every of the opposite three months, his OPS was beneath .800.
A gradual begin contributed to Soto being left off of the NL All-Star staff in a stunning snub.
Nonetheless, Soto is on tempo for 42 residence runs, which might break the profession excessive of 41 that he set final season with the Yankees.
And he’s managed to include the baserunning factor regardless of a dash pace that ranks within the bottom-Fifteenth percentile of MLB gamers, in keeping with Baseball Savant.
Soto’s 2.0 BsR — an all-encompassing baserunning metric by FanGraphs — can also be profession finest. Soto had a -3.9 BsR final 12 months and had not posted a optimistic one since 2019.
“I know that was something that [Soto has been working on] from the beginning with Antoan,” Mendoza mentioned in Might, referring to first base coach Antoan Richardson.
“Becoming a better baserunner overall. Not necessarily a base-stealer, but a baserunner, and we’ve seen that at times.”
