Nearly two years ago, Juan Soto was seated next to Josh Bell in Petco Park’s fourth-floor auditorium when he casually wished “good luck” to the opposing pitchers.
The setting wasn’t quite so grandiose as the 25-year-old superstar took his seat at the mic in Mike Shildt’s field-level, postgame interview room on Friday afternoon. A Yankees’ navy-blue, Toyota-branded backdrop had been placed in front of the Padres’ brown QuidelOrtho canvas, a contrast nearly as stark as the message that Soto had for Padres pitchers on the other side of the coin in their first post-trade meeting with the AL East-leading New York Yankees.
“I mean those guys in there, they are great,” Soto said with a laugh. “They know what to do. They have everything to compete in this game. I don’t have any message for them. I just really want to say hi to them. I want to look at them and see if they give me a little mercy.”
Advertisem*nt
Mercy? Puhlease.
The former Padre enters the weekend hitting .312/.409/.563 with 13 homers in 52 games, the kind production that perhaps even he was hoping for when the Padres traded the farm for him for a 2022 postseason run. He flashed but underwhelmed for much of that push to the NLCS (.778 OPS), and while the numbers added up to a really good season in 2023 (35 HRs, .930 OPS) even Soto hints at an underlying disappointment as he contemplated how a sold-out Petco Park might receive him Friday night.
Maybe it’s how he got there — a 1.156 OPS and 10 homers in September after pairing five homers with a .713 OPS in August — while hitting in the middle of a lineup that failed to live up to great expectations.
“It’s kind of tough for me because (the fans) were right there every day for me,” Soto said before a mixture of boos and cheered rained down on him in his first-inning at-bat. “I know I tried my best. I played hard every day, but I didn’t play as my best, you know. And that’s one of the things I was kind of sad about, because I couldn’t show them how great I can be.”
Juan Soto is introduced at Petco Park, returning for the first time since being traded. #Padres pic.twitter.com/85kFTeZu4t
— Annie Heilbrunn (@annieheilbrunn) May 25, 2024
Up until a week to two weeks before the winter meetings, Soto thought he’d get another chance. He was expecting to hit third in the lineup with Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Xander Bogaerts when the ongoing conversation with General Manager A.J. Preller took a left turn. Soto did not mention the death of Padres Chairman Peter Seidler during a 13-minute gathering with media, but the organization’s plans to cut payroll began to take shape after Seidler died in November. The December move to send Soto and Trent Grisham to the Yankees for Michael King, Jhony Brito, Randy Vásquez, Kyle Higashioka and prospect Drew Thorpe was simply confirmation of a new direction.
“He just told me, ‘I’m sorry, we were looking for trading you … and it just happened,” Soto recalled. “I was really preparing myself to come back to San Diego.”
He added: “It was a little uncomfortable. But at the same way, it’s just part of the business. I learned that with the Nationals. That it is what it is. It’s just a business. It’s no hard feelings or anything like that. But I was preparing to come back to San Diego and he just changed my plans.
“And at least he changed it for good.”
Like really good.
The Yankees have the American League’s best record. He’s thoroughly protected in the lineup (Aaron Judge has 15 homers and a 1.026 OPS) in ways he dreamed of in San Diego, before Tatis’ suspension cost him the rest of the 2022 season and Machado’s balky elbow caught up to him last year. Soto’s performance so far in his walk year likely has super agent Scott Boras salivating even coming off a poor offseason for many of last year’s crop of free agents.
Soto’s got all the reason in the world to look forward even as he begins a weekend in which the obvious question is:
What could have — should have — been in San Diego the last two year?
Soto still can’t explain what went awry. It wouldn’t do much good now anyway.
“For me, it’s just baseball,” Soto said. “I had a great time in San Diego. We had a great group in 2023. I just think it’s baseball, you know. You can have the best team on paper. You gotta go out there and try to win games, but stuff happens. We didn’t have the luck on our side in 2023. We had some games where it was nothing we can do. But it is what it is. Now it’s in the past. I tried to learn from it.
“Definitely learned a lot of things last year that is going to help me this year, that is going to help the group I’m around with. I just take it and keep moving forward.”
