In an alternate universe — or the one in which the Mets resided before October 2024 — Juan Soto would be concluding a miserable first month with the team tonight.
Through 14 home games, Soto has as many homers at Citi Field as anyone reading these words (unless Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Mark Vientos, Jesse Winker, Brett Baty or Starling Marte are reading this, in which case, we thank them for their good taste).
And yet the reception for Soto for each of his home at-bats remains warm and largely free of boos. You do not need to have a doctorate in Metsdom to remember a time when a slow start at home by a highly-touted and well-compensated new arrival would have been accompanied by a torrent of boos at Shea Stadium or Citi Field.
Bobby Bonilla signed the richest contract in baseball history (a five-year deal worth $29 million, none of it deferred — YET) on Dec. 1, 1991. He didn’t homer until his 22nd game at Shea Stadium on June 1, 1992 — two days after the oft-booed Bonilla was captured wearing earplugs during a home game against the Braves. His round-tripper off the Giants’ John Burkett raised Bonilla’s average at Shea to .136 (11-for-81). It did not get much better from there.
Mike Piazza, acquired in a blockbuster trade in May 1998, homered in his third game at Shea Stadium June 8, 1998, when Rick Reed carried a perfect game into the seventh inning against the Devil Rays before giving up a two-out double to Wade Boggs. (How’s that for a Mad Libs-esque sentence?)
Piazza needed just six more games to hit a second homer at Shea, by which point he was hitting .375 at his third home of the season and being reminded how he made outs the other 62.5 percent of the time. To what still seems to be everyone’s surprise, Piazza re-signed with the club as a free agent following the season and was inducted into the Hall of Fame with a Mets hat on his plaque.
Curtis Granderson signed a four-year deal worth $60 million on Dec. 9, 2013, five days before the Wilpons basically closed out their free agent spending by inking Bartolo Colon to a two-year deal for $20 million. (If you’re a completist, you can insist upon counting the one-year deals Kyle Farnsworth and Jose Valverde agreed to in February, even if both were released by the end of May)
Granderson needed just four games to hit his first homer at Citi Field — but didn’t go deep for a second time until his 22nd home game, by which point he was hitting .149 in 81 at-bats and getting booed regularly. But Granderson, as solid a pro as has ever played in New York, helped the Mets to the 2015 World Series and hit .239 with 95 homers while playing in 573 of a possible 606 games before getting traded to the Dodgers in August 2017.
Lindor, of course, was the first big splash for Steve Cohen, who signed Lindor to a 13-year extension worth $341 million on Mar. 31, 2021, just under three months after he was acquired from Cleveland and five days before he played in his first game for the Mets.
He was booed while needing 11 home games to hit his first homer at Citi Field on May 7 — the same night he and Jeff McNeil did not argue over whether or not they’d just seen a rat or a raccoon in the tunnel leading to the Mets’ clubhouse (a story that would have had more, err, legs if the Mets were still playing at rodent-friendly Shea).
That was not the only self-inflicted error of the season by Lindor, but as you know by now, he’s recovered from a rough debut in New York to become not only a Hall of Fame candidate but an unquestioned team leader who helped change the vibes at Citi Field. That “My Girl” is still ringing in people’s ears when Soto steps to the plate certainly makes booing a little incongruous.
It’s also harder to boo Soto when he’s being preceded and followed in the lineup by MVP candidates Lindor and Alonso, who are hitting a combined .323 with 13 homers and 44 RBIs. Even if he’s being paid as The Guy, Soto doesn’t have to be The Guy — a drastic departure from the expectations placed upon Bonilla, Piazza, Lindor and Granderson and a reminder the Cohen era Mets are no longer a top-heavy operation.
Even if he’s not yet playing up to his standards, Soto is doing generally fine. He’s generated 0.9 in WAR, per Baseball-Reference, while posting a .772 OPS. Soto has collected more walks (22) than strikeouts (20) and is performing in the field as if he wants to win a Gold Glove. Both the eye test and the advanced metrics suggest Soto will start hitting homers much sooner than later.
Most of all, it’s tough to boo Soto or anyone else when the Mets are 13-1 at home — the best 14-game home start in franchise history. The fast start is the latest reminder the tenor of and around the Mets may have completely changed last season…and ensured Soto’s first month would be nothing like one endured by any of his predecessors.
