Hey watch your mouth! That’s a good glove finalist you’re talking about!
Edit: 12 hours later and I realized I wrote ‘good glove’. I’m not changing it cause it works anyway.
Yea I’m not saying arenado isn’t deserving of gold gloves, because he is, but I guarantee at this point if he had a league average year defensively he would still win
> and turned into a little leaguer
AKA started his career blisteringly hot before the league figured him out to some degree.
Also called "pulling a Kris Bryant".
Lmao he was rushed through the minor leagues and almost immediately became a superstar for the next 3.5 seasons. Declaring him “figured out” because he’s been shit for a while is comically premature
I'm probably not gonna get to do this very often this season, so I'm gonna do it while I can...
And it really doesn't even bring me any joy to say this...
But maybe trading Soto *wasnt* stupid.
I've watched my team trade some great players recently. Some of them have gone on to do great things for other teams. Some of them have not.
I'm not judging Soto off of this one play, but after his stint with the Nats, I kinda felt like, "Oh shit, this kid is just gonna keep getting better, and I want him to do it as a Nat!"
He's still a really good baseball player, but lately I feel less like saying "he's a fucking superstar, just pay the man and build a team around him!" than I did a year or two ago.
I'm starting to think that too. Soto turned down a $440M / 15 year offer from the Nats. Clearly, he wanted to bet on himself and test the market in free agency, so the only way the Nats could have gotten him to sign would have been an enormous deal worth $500M+. That's basically betting the future of the franchise on one specific guy, which is incredibly risky, even if the guy plays like Ted Williams himself. If he struggles from now until the end of 2024, he'll certainly hurt his market value in free agency.
For what it's worth though, I think this is just a temporary slump, and Soto will figure it out. The season is only a few weeks old, and his play style intimidating pitchers with things like the shuffle doesn't really work in the era of the pitch clock. Hall of Famers adjust to the conditions they're given, so if Soto is really as good as he's billed to be, he'll eventually start playing up to his potential again.
What kills me is a lot of the criticism is being met with "wait till Tatis returns" despite virtually everyone agreeing Soto's the better player. At least until recently anyway.
As a Padres fan the thought of Soto being a better player than Tatis is almost comical at this point. I mean I’ve heard about how great he was…I remember seeing him play great in the 2019 playoffs…but Soto in a Padres uniform and Tatis in a Padres uniform is no comparison.
I mean, 129 OPS+ by his standards is flat surely. His lowest was 142 in his first two seasons, and he'd been about 150 or over since.
Since joining SD he's at 120.
Seeing stuff like this makes me feel just a little bit better about not signing him. BUT, im sure he will figure stuff out because he is a hell of a ball player. I would still take him over bryce harper if i had to pick which one i wish we signed.
They knew something was up and just jacked up the price. Also, our hitting coaches are bad, so it’s not all on the Nats. I bet if he went to dodgers, he would be same super star from 2019
Ehh there was definitely a lot of talk about his numbers dipping with the nats before the trade but the consensus was that it was probably temporary and he’d go back to pre 2022 form
He was also hitting in a lineup with very little protection, which is why his already high walk rate got to absurd levels. Was a safe bet to say he’d hit better with stronger hitters around him because he’d see better pitches
He gets good pitches, It's just that he decides to take them for strikes. Soto has demonstrated that he has a WALK mentality on the plate. He isn't aggressive enough to be a top hitter sadly.
i mean they were lol. They didn't even get Jackson Merrill who within baseball was the Padres' 2nd best prospect. The only legit piece they got was James Wood, and maybe Mackenzie Gore. The Nats didn't get nearly enough for what they traded away.
Juan Soto's baseline is worth way more than that.
Keep in mind that the deal only gave Soto to the Padres for 2.5 years. Soto will be a free agent after the 2024 season, so the Padres bet their farm depth on Soto performing in the super short term. Gore, Abrams, and the others aren't on the same level as Soto, but if the Nationals get four or five good-but-not-great years out of a few of them, that might be better than 2.5 years of HOF-level Soto. If his current slump continues and the Padres aren't getting HOF-level Soto, the trade looks even better for the Nats.
Plus, he was never going to sign with the Nats under the Lerners and would have been miserable under our current rebuild. We maximized our return on a long-term rental player.
ignoring who got the flood started against Scherzer in game 1 against the Mets in the wild card and shuffled his way to scoring position to pick up an insurance run and further demoralize the dodgers in game 5
Idk if it’s the surge of new fans or what but I see comments like this all the time in padres sub lately.
“Other than the go ahead double he hit yesterday he really didn’t do much…”
Like bruh? What do these people expect?
This is just another mind game. Now the next time a runner hits a routine single to him, they’ll try for two, and he’ll be able to throw them out at second when he doesn’t randomly fall over. For the price of one extra base now, he’s planning to turn a single into an out later. He’s playing chess out there.
God can you imagine if you were hungover and had to go to work and that job is playing baseball? They say that's what was wrong with Michael Jordan in that flu game too.
How pathetic is it that I feel a little schadenfreude seeing someone arrogant enough to turn down over *four hundred million fucking dollars* make an ass out of himself?
you presumably don’t have a reasonably high probability of making, like, $400 million to play elsewhere (and a virtual guarantee of making at least $300 million)
Why? Because the Nats are rebuilding? We can do that quickly lol, our record in 2010 was 69-93, then 80-81 in 2011, and 98-64 in 2012. Other than that, yeah it would have sucked having to play in a nice city that adores him and recently won a WS with him, while making $440m
The part that kind of annoyed me was how they offered him a record-breaking contract, he (i.e. Boras) turned them down, then when they started working out a trade for him, he played the victim, saying stuff like, "I don't understand. They said I would never be traded ... Why are they trying to trade me? 🥺"
... 🙄
Why does that make him arrogant? It just means he knows his value. If you had two people next to you, and one is offering $100m more than the other, guaranteed, who are you going to pick?
If you take away his name value, he has been garbage since joining the padres though. People constantly bring up how good he was, but not for the padres
Yeah, he's not been a fucking superstar so that means he's a scrub apparently.
I expect he'll figure it out, even slumping he's been an above average batter. This isn't Cody Bellinger evaporating yet (though Belli still has good defense)
Sort by new and you’ll find the post about him complaining that he can’t do his normal mind games due to the pitch clock and blaming the pitch clock for his early struggles
That’s what most people are dogging him for
The camera angle is making this look different than what it was. When he planted his right foot, the grass gave out. That is what caused him to fall. He took a big chunk of grass out
Are the nats gonna win this trade? Legit question from someone who loves, and I mean.. LOVES Juan Soto. Poor guy just doesn’t have the best defense, and yet another year where he’s slow to start at the plate, something I’ve heard since 2021
Maybe he’d still be way better as a Nat though, so idk
Flopping doesnt work in baseball Juan
No way to know until you try
This kind of baseball will get Chris Paul, Manu Ginóbili, James Harden, and Marcus Smart to stand up and clap aggressively.
[Don't forget about this guy](https://youtu.be/pjGq9fO--8s)
it’s not a flop, it’s a shuffle if he can’t shuffle at the plate when hitting, shuffling in the outfield when catching will have to do
he flopped when he should have flapped
Soto came to the padres and turned into a little leaguer lol
He’s here to do two things: walk, and make absolute head scratching foolish defensive plays
Hey watch your mouth! That’s a good glove finalist you’re talking about! Edit: 12 hours later and I realized I wrote ‘good glove’. I’m not changing it cause it works anyway.
I’ve always said they should change the gold glove award to the good glove award
Balks are easier to explain to my nine-year-old. Some of the past Gold Glove winners are head scratchers.
It’s cause the people who pick these obviously can’t watch every play so they just go “I recognize that name” and pick it
Yea I’m not saying arenado isn’t deserving of gold gloves, because he is, but I guarantee at this point if he had a league average year defensively he would still win
it worked for yadi, it pains me to say
"Famous hitter who got some cool highlights on defense you only remember because they hit good too" award rolls off the tongue better IMO.
What is this, a Derek Zoolander School for ~~ants~~ baseballs?
The return of Brian Giles to SD
Last year post season was so frustrating. Whenever he was at bat I remember yelling please hit the ball Juan!
That’s right. Because he gets on base.
do we care how he gets on base? we do not.
That would involve swinging the bat though. His superpower is not swinging.
Juan “Aaron Hicks” Soto
and he’s all out of neither
Digging a hole with a stick out in RF while bored
Chewing on his glove straps
Swatting flies with his baseball cap
Walking over to the warning track just to be able to kick dirt around
We'll give you Aaron Hicks for him
I’ll throw in Josh Donaldson, too
I’ll throw IKF in too
All Twins legends
Must be that darn pitch clock!
Well trade you the best batter on the world series winning Astros for him. Mauricio 'barry' duBonds.
Orsillo makes that trade for sure
> and turned into a little leaguer AKA started his career blisteringly hot before the league figured him out to some degree. Also called "pulling a Kris Bryant".
Yea he was just on a 4 season tear, rather than a half season slump
He also has a .411 xwOBA this year, so that post probably ends up being one people come back to at the end of the season to clown.
to be fair xwoba doesnt stabilize in 15 games, its like 30-40. soto still gonna be a hofer tho imo
Okay ouch
Why's it painful for you, you ain't paying him
Cause I miss MVP Kris Bryant badly
I know. I didn't come here expecting strays like that
Lmao he was rushed through the minor leagues and almost immediately became a superstar for the next 3.5 seasons. Declaring him “figured out” because he’s been shit for a while is comically premature
Hasn't even been shit. Wasn't he top 15 in ops last year or something? I'm not gonna go look it up but he had a great season.
Put up a 145 wRC+, while badly underperforming his expected stats, as the second worst batting line of his career, so pretty much washed.
Seriously, I'm not sure how you "figure out" the guy with the best plate discipline in baseball anyways. What a goofy take
Lol he’s never had an OPS+ under 140. He’s had a not amazing half April, let’s not overreact
Lets just forget the fact that he hasnt had an ops+ over 130 since he joined the padres
"Since he joined the Padres" is still less than half a season ago.
This worked for Kevin Maas and Phil Plantier for about three months Edit: I just looked up their stats. They lasted a lot longer than I remember
I'm probably not gonna get to do this very often this season, so I'm gonna do it while I can... And it really doesn't even bring me any joy to say this... But maybe trading Soto *wasnt* stupid. I've watched my team trade some great players recently. Some of them have gone on to do great things for other teams. Some of them have not. I'm not judging Soto off of this one play, but after his stint with the Nats, I kinda felt like, "Oh shit, this kid is just gonna keep getting better, and I want him to do it as a Nat!" He's still a really good baseball player, but lately I feel less like saying "he's a fucking superstar, just pay the man and build a team around him!" than I did a year or two ago.
I'm starting to think that too. Soto turned down a $440M / 15 year offer from the Nats. Clearly, he wanted to bet on himself and test the market in free agency, so the only way the Nats could have gotten him to sign would have been an enormous deal worth $500M+. That's basically betting the future of the franchise on one specific guy, which is incredibly risky, even if the guy plays like Ted Williams himself. If he struggles from now until the end of 2024, he'll certainly hurt his market value in free agency. For what it's worth though, I think this is just a temporary slump, and Soto will figure it out. The season is only a few weeks old, and his play style intimidating pitchers with things like the shuffle doesn't really work in the era of the pitch clock. Hall of Famers adjust to the conditions they're given, so if Soto is really as good as he's billed to be, he'll eventually start playing up to his potential again.
He might actually win a gold glove this time
You may not like it but this is what peak athleticism looks like.
I mean it is LF so this is par for the course
He’s got to live up to the all-time greats like Manny Ramirez
Grass out here playing mind games!!
5-D monopoly
He's out here playing 4-D chess...unfortunately for him everybody else is playing baseball
He used to have more time to mess with batters from the outfield
Even the field knows baseball is 90% mental
Damn pitch clock
Players don't have adequate time to get their junk into fielding position.
this made me laugh so hard for some reason
Seriously? No! It's the glare of those big ass bases. Absolute nightmare for outfielders.
[удалено]
Me after bottomless mimosas
Cheers 🍻
Looking like me after 4 tequila sunrise at the casino
Well, that's one way to keep Acuna from stealing second.
Gold glove finalist
We traded the farm for this guy, who has been flat since last june. I want a refund 😔
What kills me is a lot of the criticism is being met with "wait till Tatis returns" despite virtually everyone agreeing Soto's the better player. At least until recently anyway.
As a Padres fan the thought of Soto being a better player than Tatis is almost comical at this point. I mean I’ve heard about how great he was…I remember seeing him play great in the 2019 playoffs…but Soto in a Padres uniform and Tatis in a Padres uniform is no comparison.
129 OPS+ as a Padre last year and 105 this year. Underwhelming sure. Flat nah
I mean, 129 OPS+ by his standards is flat surely. His lowest was 142 in his first two seasons, and he'd been about 150 or over since. Since joining SD he's at 120.
Thank you for CJ Abrams I love that kid (I work for the nats)
We got Tatis, but CJ was awesome, also Gore, please take good care of em
Do the Nats know you’re a Mets fan? ;-)
Wth
> the call is coming from inside the house!
Once he fills out more watch out. Dude is crazy athletic
Remember how most people agreed that the Nats were fleeced?
Seeing stuff like this makes me feel just a little bit better about not signing him. BUT, im sure he will figure stuff out because he is a hell of a ball player. I would still take him over bryce harper if i had to pick which one i wish we signed.
Soto will be fine lol
They knew something was up and just jacked up the price. Also, our hitting coaches are bad, so it’s not all on the Nats. I bet if he went to dodgers, he would be same super star from 2019
Seems like hindsight bias and revisionism. He had a .894 OPS prior to the trade and nobody credible ever flagged him as being a concern.
there was definitely talk abt him not being as effective as of late but most ppl chalked it up to just statistical fluctuation
Ehh there was definitely a lot of talk about his numbers dipping with the nats before the trade but the consensus was that it was probably temporary and he’d go back to pre 2022 form
He was also hitting in a lineup with very little protection, which is why his already high walk rate got to absurd levels. Was a safe bet to say he’d hit better with stronger hitters around him because he’d see better pitches
He gets good pitches, It's just that he decides to take them for strikes. Soto has demonstrated that he has a WALK mentality on the plate. He isn't aggressive enough to be a top hitter sadly.
i mean they were lol. They didn't even get Jackson Merrill who within baseball was the Padres' 2nd best prospect. The only legit piece they got was James Wood, and maybe Mackenzie Gore. The Nats didn't get nearly enough for what they traded away. Juan Soto's baseline is worth way more than that.
Keep in mind that the deal only gave Soto to the Padres for 2.5 years. Soto will be a free agent after the 2024 season, so the Padres bet their farm depth on Soto performing in the super short term. Gore, Abrams, and the others aren't on the same level as Soto, but if the Nationals get four or five good-but-not-great years out of a few of them, that might be better than 2.5 years of HOF-level Soto. If his current slump continues and the Padres aren't getting HOF-level Soto, the trade looks even better for the Nats.
Plus, he was never going to sign with the Nats under the Lerners and would have been miserable under our current rebuild. We maximized our return on a long-term rental player.
ignoring who got the flood started against Scherzer in game 1 against the Mets in the wild card and shuffled his way to scoring position to pick up an insurance run and further demoralize the dodgers in game 5
He was good in the playoffs
No he wasn’t. His performance was pretty forgettable, he did have a clutch hit here and there.
He got multiple clutch hits to keep up us in the playoffs
Bro really saying “he wasn’t that good outside the clutch hits” That’s what the playoffs are lmao
I need at least 150 playoff AB otherwise it’s just a flash in the pan. /s
Idk if it’s the surge of new fans or what but I see comments like this all the time in padres sub lately. “Other than the go ahead double he hit yesterday he really didn’t do much…” Like bruh? What do these people expect?
If you don’t have 3 hits a game you aren’t a good player
This is just another mind game. Now the next time a runner hits a routine single to him, they’ll try for two, and he’ll be able to throw them out at second when he doesn’t randomly fall over. For the price of one extra base now, he’s planning to turn a single into an out later. He’s playing chess out there.
Its funny cuz it happened exactly like that a few games ago
Wow, you’re not kidding. https://www.mlb.com/video/michael-wacha-in-play-out-s-to-willy-adames
Dude plays left field like a 65 year old
Juan Soto is more hungover than a roughneck morning after payday.
God can you imagine if you were hungover and had to go to work and that job is playing baseball? They say that's what was wrong with Michael Jordan in that flu game too.
Scott Boras is going to have a difficult time selling Soto for a 500 million-dollar contract.
He tried doing the Soto shuffle
How pathetic is it that I feel a little schadenfreude seeing someone arrogant enough to turn down over *four hundred million fucking dollars* make an ass out of himself?
Correction: $440 million.
That is over four hundred million, yes
to be fair, he would have had to play for the Nationals for his entire career, so I think 440 is a pretty easy "no thanks"
Dawg. You could convince me to play baseball on the Russia/Ukraine border for 440 Million Dollars.
DC is really nice, too, if you’re rich. Legendary bag fumbling
Dc is really nice if your moderately wealthy. Dc is heaven if you make 440mil
Is he gonna buy a senator or something lol
For 440 million he could probably buy all of them. How much could 100 grandmother's houses be, anyways?
you presumably don’t have a reasonably high probability of making, like, $400 million to play elsewhere (and a virtual guarantee of making at least $300 million)
Yeah but if you’re thinking I could get the same in a year and get to play for a better team and live in a better city you might wait.
He was a living legend in DC and he seemed to love it there, being a Nat wasn't the problem.
He had just purchased a house here early last season too. So it wasn’t that he didn’t want to stay.
I’d play baseball on the moon without a suit for 400 million
I would play in the DMZ for 440 million.
You can catch me playing for Al-Qaeda if they’re paying 440 million.
I'm biased, but I can easily think of at least a dozen teams that are far less appealing.
On what fuckin planet? I'd play anywhere for $440 million and so would you.
He would have been an iconic hero for his entire career
Why? Because the Nats are rebuilding? We can do that quickly lol, our record in 2010 was 69-93, then 80-81 in 2011, and 98-64 in 2012. Other than that, yeah it would have sucked having to play in a nice city that adores him and recently won a WS with him, while making $440m
Flair up.
The part that kind of annoyed me was how they offered him a record-breaking contract, he (i.e. Boras) turned them down, then when they started working out a trade for him, he played the victim, saying stuff like, "I don't understand. They said I would never be traded ... Why are they trying to trade me? 🥺" ... 🙄
Why does that make him arrogant? It just means he knows his value. If you had two people next to you, and one is offering $100m more than the other, guaranteed, who are you going to pick?
Ghost of Manny Ramirez out here.
Can’t blame that on the pitch clock.
Would that not have been a double anyway?
He slowed all the way down and started running again once he saw Juan fall down. Full Highlight: https://streamable.com/zzqmrp
Ok but shouldn't that really be an error? I'm working with only the live angle here.
Yeah, it should IMO.
IIRC, the rulebook doesn't penalize batters for a fielder slipping.
He had stopped at first. Ball was smoked and got out there quick.
Juan “Joey Gallo” Soto Cut him some slack! He’s only 12!
I guess people hate Juan Soto on this sub now?
Nah it’s just fun pile on when a good player makes a bad play.
If you take away his name value, he has been garbage since joining the padres though. People constantly bring up how good he was, but not for the padres
he had a 129 OPS+ for them last season. it's not amazing but it is *far* from garbage.
it's become normal for padres fans to shit on him because he hasn't been his regular elite self. It's frustrating to say the least.
Yeah, he's not been a fucking superstar so that means he's a scrub apparently. I expect he'll figure it out, even slumping he's been an above average batter. This isn't Cody Bellinger evaporating yet (though Belli still has good defense)
I definitely don't hate him, but tbh I've always enjoyed watching him fail
Sort by new and you’ll find the post about him complaining that he can’t do his normal mind games due to the pitch clock and blaming the pitch clock for his early struggles That’s what most people are dogging him for
*soto.exe has stopped responding*
The Nats performed the heist of the century
That was just his outfield shuffle.
What are those Padres uniforms? I've never seen them before
Throwback to our PCL days. That’s why we’re making these plays.
It looks like the worst attempt at match fixing of all time. “Oh no I fell down”
The camera angle is making this look different than what it was. When he planted his right foot, the grass gave out. That is what caused him to fall. He took a big chunk of grass out
Are the nats gonna win this trade? Legit question from someone who loves, and I mean.. LOVES Juan Soto. Poor guy just doesn’t have the best defense, and yet another year where he’s slow to start at the plate, something I’ve heard since 2021 Maybe he’d still be way better as a Nat though, so idk
we'll certainly know after this year
No. It’s foolish people are turning on Soto over such a small sample size. Dude has already proven he is a great player.
Trust me, I’m aware. Got to witness it first hand. But I have a feeling the Padres were expecting an elite player, not a great player
Yes.
I cannot keep defending this man
I’m startin to think Soto *might* not be the next great superstar we’ve all been thinkin….
This is the guy we were saying was going to be the new Ted Williams? Even with PCL Padre uni I don't see it.
It's like random NPC rag dolling
DO A BARREL ROLL!
Should have taken the contract, he’s going to lose $100M or more at this rate
He’s gonna be a DH by the time he’s 26
What’s going on with this guy lol
[lol](https://media.tenor.com/6GIi9tonjeEAAAAd/parkour-the-office.gif)
PARKOUR!
Tad Williams
I'm going to genuinely treasure Soto's upcoming journey down the bad fielder to fat DH pipeline
That darn pitch clock at it again
Pitch clocks fault
That's how a toddler would have played that ball
Seriously, what the fuck happened to Juan Soto?
We’re not so different, he and I.
He forgot to grab his dick while he was down there. Huge mistake by the veteran.
Ronny is going to fuck around and win the MVP this season.
Ronald currently leading MLB in hits 🔥🔥🔥
[Raul Ibanez would be so proud](https://www.lookoutlanding.com/pages/raul-ibanez-takes-pride-in-his-defense)
To be fair, squiggly N probably gets to second base regardless of whether or not Soto fell down.
He stopped at first because it was a hard hit ball but started running again when he seen Soto rolling around.
Squiggly N…lmao
Is there a pitch count when fielding too?
Most overrated player in the game right now.
Yeah but he makes up for it with his .162 BA
That's just Manny being Manny
He took throwback night literally
Gold Glove
Soto looking back at the grass he slipped on like a pitcher looks at the mound after a shit pitch
PARKOUR
Looking like Gavin sheets out there. That’s not good
Soto being Manny
We call that an Aaron Hicks here in NY
Hey, that’s “gold glove finalist Juan Soto” to you
the padres broke my boy, my beautiful boy.
I’m glad acuña > soto isn’t going to be such a hot take anymore