Last offseason’s biggest name in the free agent market was superstar Juan Soto. Fresh off a top three finish in the American League MVP race, accumulating his career best fWAR and home runs, he headed
into free agency looking for one of the biggest contracts in the history of sports. And he got that and more, receiving the largest contract in the history of professional sports from the New York Mets.
So needless to say, expectations were high heading into the season. For a team that was two games away from the World Series the year before, the addition of Juan Soto only increased the already lofty expectations for 2025. And while the Mets as a whole failed to live up to their success the year prior, Juan Soto had yet another brilliant campaign, despite coming up a bit short of his transcendent 2024.
Juan Soto accumulated 5.8 fWAR, with 43 home runs, 105 RBI, and a National League leading 38 stolen bases, more than triple his previous career high and leading to his first 30-30 season. He had a 156 wRC+, led the National League with a .396 on-base percentage and led the entire major leagues with 127 walks.
And even though most of his topline numbers were either equal or down, the underlying metrics tell the whole store. According to Statcast, Soto was in the 99th percentile of batting run value and the 90th percentile of baserunning run value. He was in the 95th percentile or better of expected wOBA, expected batting average, expected slugging, average exit velocity, barrel percentage, hard-hit percentage, chase percentage and walk percentage. Looking under the hood, he was just as good this season, if not better than before.
HIs baserunning was the headline of his season though, an improvement very few people saw coming–at least, in that order of magnitude. Leading the National League in stolen bases and very nearly getting a 40-40 season was so out of the blue but showed the amount of work he put in to create another impressive area of his game this season. Despite having a 13th percentile sprint speed, he was able to make himself into one of the league’s biggest base stealers.
Now, as always with Soto, the one area of his game with major flaws was his defense, and 2025 was no exception. He had -12 outs above average, despite having pretty decent arm strength. But this is a known part of Juan Soto as a baseball player. Other than one or two seasons earlier in his career, he’s always been a below average fielder, and often a well-below average fielder. While he might be able to be a little better than he was this season, becoming a primary designated hitter probably isn’t too far off into his future.
His season wasn’t good all the way through, of course. Much was written and spoken about his disappointing start to the season, and to be fair his first two months-plus with the Mets were a very shaky start to a near-billion dollar contract set to last for the next decade and a half. But starting in June, other than a slow July, Juan Soto was the superstar he’s been known to be. Especially his June, where he had 226 wRC+ and a 1.196 OPS, was as transcendent a run as he’s ever had. And as the season started to slip away from the Mets, he became even better trying with all his might to put the Mets on his back and carry them to the postseason. For the last two-plus months of the season, he didn’t have a wRC+ below 180, hitting eighteen home runs, driving in 43 runs and stealing more than half of his season total.
All of this culminated in a top three finish for MVP in the National League, coming in third behind Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber. He won his sixth Silver Slugger award and made yet another All-MLB First Team. He was the National League Player of the Month in June, and just missed making the All-Star Game in a somewhat controversial result. Not bad for the first of fifteen years in Queens.
Juan Soto has played just one of his fifteen years in Queens, and it was about as good a start to his tenure as one would have hoped. Despite the overall disappointing season as a team, Soto showed he is exactly the player they wanted when they signed him, being an offensive force to be reckoned with and attempting to pull the team along with him when they were scuffling. After a top three finish for MVP, the sky’s the limit for the young superstar in orange and blue.
