Juan Soto is boarding the 7-train for a $765 million payday with the New York Mets.
With Sunday night's announcement, the biggest name in baseball's 2024-25 free-agent season, and the highest-ranked free agent in all of fantasy baseball, is off the board. Soto will spend the next 15 seasons manning right field -- although a later-career shift to designated hitter appears logical -- and batting second or third for the Mets.
Soto, now a prime-age 26, is coming off the best statistical season of his career, including personal-bests of 41 home runs, 128 runs scored, 166 hits, 328 total bases, 713 plate appearances and 137.2 runs created. At a casual glance, the crosstown move appears to hurt more than help him, considering the differential in ballpark environments between the New York Yankees and Mets, as well as a perceived weaker offense.
It's true, Citi Field is a much more pitching-friendly environment than Soto's single-year home, Yankee Stadium -- and particularly so for left-handed hitters. Statcast's Park Factors reflect that Yankee Stadium inflated home runs by 19% for both lefties and hitters as a whole over the last three seasons, and it generally ranged anywhere from 14-25% more favorable over any three-year span since its opening in 2009. Citi Field, by comparison, deflated lefties' home runs by 7% over the last three years, which covers the time span since the park's most-recent dimension changes.
The Mets, too, scored 47 fewer runs, or 0.29 per game, than the Yankees did last season, but bear in mind that the latter's total included Soto's contributions. From 2022-24, the Yankees only outscored their crosstown rivals by 38 runs total, meaning that Soto's addition should instantly make the Mets the more likely of the two to exceed the 800-run threshold in 2025. And, considering owner Steve Cohen's financial commitment to Soto, coupled with his past aggressive spending habits, it's a fair assumption to think that Soto will be surrounded with a robust supporting cast that will only enhance his number of RBI and run-scoring opportunities.
Returning to the ballpark point, Soto has played a good portion of his career in venues that haven't been all that much more friendly to left-handed power hitters than his new home. He hit 35 homers, his second-best single year total, with the 2023 San Diego Padres, who call Petco Park home, and 34 and 29 with the 2019 and 2021 Washington Nationals, whose Nationals Park is a neutral power environment. Soto might never be the betting favorite for a league-leading HR total during his Mets career, but Citi Field's environment shouldn't greatly hinder his number.
Incidentally, Soto is a .333/.466/.709 lifetime hitter in his 35 games at Citi Field, and his 12 home runs and 9.8 HR/AB rate are both his best in any single ballpark in which he has appeared in at least 15 games. Ignore those numbers as "small-sample luck" if you wish, but the fact remains that Citi Field hasn't hindered him in the past.
We'll see how the rest of the Mets lineup assembles over the coming weeks -- how the team handles first base with Pete Alonso being a free agent has some say in that -- but there's enough talent in this lineup for Soto to remain an easy, universal first-rounder.
Francisco Lindor, if he's still the leadoff man as appears likely, should benefit from more quality pitches to hit ahead of Soto in the order, while prospective No. 3 and cleanup hitters would enjoy the "Aaron Judge" treatment behind Soto. If that's Mark Vientos, the hitter most-often slotted in that range currently still with the Mets, he could follow up his 2024 breakthrough with another noticeable step forward in production.
Soto is more valuable in points leagues than in traditional roto, having reached the 500-point threshold (the bar for defining the game's truly elite) and being a top-10 overall scorer three times in the last four years. He ended up ranked 20th, 116th, 21st and 8th overall on the Player Rater during that same time.
His choice of blue and orange over pinstripes, however, shouldn't dissuade prospective fantasy managers from investing a mid-first-round pick on him. Soto's consistency, ranging from 27-41 home runs and 93-128 runs scored over his last five non-abbreviated seasons, makes him one of the best return-on-investment players in that stage of the fantasy draft.