A er struggling in San Diego, Soto thriving with Yankees

NEW YORK — Last week, an unfamiliar sight materialized behind second base at Yankee Stadium. The New York Yankees’ newest superstar, Juan Soto, knelt there during batting practice, waiting to frame Jahmai Jones’s throw from the outfield wall. Outfielder Alex Verdugo stood behind Soto, crouched like an umpire, every time Jones shagged a flyball and fired Soto’s way.

Whenever Soto framed a throw just so, he and Verdugo celebrated with emphatic strike calls. When Jones leaped and pulled a ball back over the wall, they threw their arms in the air and roared with glee.

Frivolity has not had much place on this field in recent years, particularly for those who call it home. Since the Yankees’ last World Series title in 2009, as they made six straight postseasons from 2017 to 2022, and especially as they stumbled into an unthinkable fourth-place finish in the American League East last year, they have been furrowing their brows and gritting their teeth. There were expectations to meet, traditions to uphold, contracts to be justified, trades to be validated. There were injuries to be navigated, but never used as excuses. One thing there was not was fun.

But last week, with the Houston Astros in the visitor’s dugout, something felt different. Some of the shift was straightforward, such as the ease with which the Yankees walloped the Astros in the first two games of a series that left them 11 games over .500. Houston, the nemesis of this New York generation, has not struggled like this in a decade. The Yankees have rarely looked quite so superior.

But most of the difference was less tangible, the feeling that this lineup had finally developed immunity to the pressure and streakiness that undid it in the past - a feeling, it is not an exaggeration to say, tied directly to the presence of Juan Soto.

“I’ve heard all my life over the years, ‘This guy never gives an at-bat away.’ Juan embodies that. Every pitch, it’s like, you’re holding your breath a little bit,” New York Manager Aaron Boone said. “Before Juan got here, that’s who we always have kind of wanted to be as an offense. He certainly embodies that, and I do think there’s been at least a subtle movement of the needle [toward that approach] because of his presence.”

Soto, who will be a free agent after this season, is only 25 years old, but the Yankees traded for him this winter because they knew he is one of the rare players who can move the needle for an entire offense all by himself. In the summer of 2022, the San Diego Padres dealt for him

“Before Juan got here, that’s who we always have kind of wanted to be as an offense. He certainly emnbodies that, and I do think there’s been at least a subtle movement of the needle [toward that approach] because of his presence.”

at the deadline for the same reason. Soto was good in San Diego: .265 average, .893 OPS, an MLB-high 132 walks in 2023. But he didn’t transform the Padres - who disappointed and devolved into clubhouse drama during his time there as the baseball world thought he might.

“Definitely 2022, 2023 was a little bit of a struggle right there,” Soto said. “I didn’t feel my swing was right. I definitely went back this year, worked on my swing, talked with my coaches, getting it back to the spot we wanted to.”

But those in the sport who watched Soto since his days with the Washington Nationals thought the difference extended far beyond his swing and into his demeanor. When Soto turned down more than $400 million from the Nationals and was jettisoned from the only baseball home he had ever known, something shifted. He didn’t smile as much, didn’t want to do interviews, didn’t seem to trust his Padres coaches. He indulged fewer flattering perks of baseball superstardom, withdrawing from the clubhouse more than he ever did in Washington, working on his own schedule, bristling at reporters.

He looked nothing like the guy who flew out to support to his former teammates, Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, when the pair played for the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League wildcard game in 2021, smiling and hyping up the crowd every time the cameras found him. He didn’t play much like that guy, either.

For most players, a contract year would not exactly be an ideal balm. The pressure to perform and make the most of free agency rarely fosters joy. At best, a contract year can motivate. At worst, it can debilitate. But for Soto, somehow, there is none of that, not a hint that the contract he says he trusts his agent, Scott Boras, to handle is causing him any concern at all.

From the moment he threw out a runner at the plate on Opening Day in Houston to the moment he waved his arms to the fans calling his name the first time he ran out to right field at Yankee Stadium, Soto has looked completely, utterly - almost gleefully - at home.

“I just feel really good [right now],” Soto said. “Like 2021 Juan Soto.”

He is shuffling with abandon. He is joking with teammates. And he is hitting. Through his first 41 games as a Yankee,

Soto is hitting .316 with a .967 OPS and nine homers. He is leading the American League in on-base percentage (.419) and - along with Kansas City’s Salvador Perez and Cleveland’s José Ramírez - is tied for the AL lead in RBI (33). He has 28 walks, second-most in the AL, and 85 total bases. And he has transformed a Yankees offense whose .701 OPS last season was 24th in baseball into a relative juggernaut: Their .739 OPS is sixth in the majors.

Some of the credit for this early Yankees surge must also go to Verdugo, whose swift transformation from problem child in Boston to much-needed fountain of levity here is a story for another day. But Soto’s impact on the team’s offensive swagger cannot be overstated.

He helps because he takes pressure off Aaron Judge, who in recent years has at times seemed like the only person in New York’s lineup capable of conjuring offense when the team needed it most and weathered it with a stoicism seemingly aimed at refuting the notion he was wilting under the bright lights.

“The best thing for me is that when they’re facing him, they’re not just attacking him with fastballs or one pitch. The hitters behind him, like me, I’m getting to see every single pitch,” Judge said. “I’m getting a chance to see how’s the slider today, how’s his change-up today, maybe he doesn’t have fastball velocity, so he’ll try to go here with that pitch instead.”

He helps because he is a hitting savant, wise beyond his years, and he is willing to share what he knows.

“He’s my age, but when he talks hitting with me I’m seeing a 40-year-old guy,” said Oswaldo Cabrera, Soto’s 25-yearold teammate. “Then when we relax, it’s talking to that guy my same age.”

And he helps because he is a showman, so earnest about the sport that he doesn’t flee its biggest moments but truly cherishes them - not shadowed with any of the doubt that so many of his colleagues feel regularly.

“It’s no surprise to anybody that he’s enjoyed playing here. The crowd, the feelings, he’s excited,” Yankees infielder Gleyber Torres said. “I think that makes it easy for him to play well.”

Torres, who has become one of Soto’s closer friends in his new clubhouse, laughed when asked if he has ever witnessed Soto doubt himself.

“Never,” Torres laughed. Yankees as sistant hitting coach Pat Roessler, who previously coached Soto when they were both in Washington, said he never doubted the outfielder would find success in New York, either.

“Someone asked me that in spring training. I said there was no doubt,” Roessler said. “He loves this atmosphere. He loves being the guy. He loves when there’s a lot riding on things, and it seems like with the Yankees, there’s a lot riding on every game.”

When the Yankees were considering a trade for Soto this offseason, they were mulling a move for a young player whose résumé suggested, even after two down years, that he was about as sure to find success there as anyone could be.

“But you just never know,” one Yankees executive said this week, running through a list of players the front office was confident could handle baseball in the Bronx, who crumbled upon arrival. Now, far from collapsing inward, here is Soto, pieces seemingly back together, remembering how to shine.

“Every time there’s a big moment, a big-time play, I want to be in it. I want to be there. I don’t know, it’s just a different adrenaline for me. My body feels different. Everything feels locked in,” Soto said.

“These crowds, they’re unbelievable every day,” he added. “I just feel great. You just kind of feel different, you know?”

The Yankees, off to a strong start despite a slow April from Judge and the absence of ace Gerrit Cole, certainly do know. This might be their only year of Soto. Verdugo will be a free agent, too. But the difference is visible, palpable even to those whose days and duties allow little time for reflection - the difference, it seems, between anxieties of Yankees teams past and the anticipation Soto’s presence fuels.

“It’s a show,” Boone said. “You can feel the energy of the crowd. When he goes up there, he takes ball one. Ooh, strike one. One-two now, how’s the atbat going to unfold? Literally, every pitch, it’s theater.”

Then again, it’s only May. The Yankees know better than most that good feelings now can still give way to frustration later. They have done so almost every year in recent memory. Plus, few players can single-handedly push a lineup into another stratosphere. Baseball limits the impact of any one savior. But few players can do what Juan Soto can when he is right. And a month’s worth of pitchers have not been able to limit his impact, either.

— Aaron Boone on Juan Soto