Juan Soto knew that ball was gone. (Photo by Leslie Plaza Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
The New York Mets gave Juan Soto more than three quarters of a billion dollars to do mean things to baseballs for the next 15 years. He officially got started on Friday.
The 26-year-old outfielder slugged the first home run of his Mets career on Friday, taking a cutter from Houston Astros starter Hunter Brown and depositing it in the second deck of Minute Maid Park. The speed of the ball off the bat: 107.3 mph. The distance: 390 feet.
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Everyone in the stadium, including Soto, knew where the ball was landing.
Soto made his Mets debut on Opening Day a day earlier, going 1-for-3 with two walks and a strikeout in a 3-1 loss. He showed his plate discipline that day, and on Friday he showed his power.
It isn’t the first time he’s wowed that particular park with a moonshot, as he broke out on the national stage when he slugged a homer off Gerrit Cole to the train tracks for the Washington Nationals in the 2019 World Series.
This week’s games are the start of the most expensive tenure in the history of sports. Soto signed a record-shattering 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets in free agency last winter, and it’s even more valuable than you’d think when compared to Shohei Ohtani’s previously record-holding $700 million deal.
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Unlike Ohtani, Soto’s deal contains no deferred money. Unlike Ohtani, Soto’s deal has an opt-out that can be nullified by making it an $815 million deal. Having signed the longest contract in MLB history, Soto will be under Mets team control until he is 40 years old. That is what happens when you get the Mets and New York Yankees in a bidding war, with the Los Angeles Dodgers looming on the sidelines.
So the Mets will take their first Soto homer as quickly as they can, and preferably much more after that. Considering Darryl Strawberry is New York’s all-time home run leader is Darryl Strawberry with 252 (with Pete Alonso at 226 and counting) and Soto has averaged 34.8 homers per 162 games in his career (with 41 last year), it is entirely possible, if not probable, that Soto retires as the Mets’ new homer leader.
