The Champ is Here

While it rained for a second consecutive day in New York, the metaphorical and literal sun shone in Port. St. Lucie, Florida yesterday. That was where Juan Soto walked into New York Mets camp for the first time. And no, he wasn’t lost. He was a day early for the first mandatory workout for position players, but he was in the right place. The numbers 15 (years) and 765 (millions) will gradually give way to the numbers of his slash lines, the record contract talk to the “how is he doing this?” historical conversations. For now the transition isn’t complete. We’re still in the “Is this real? phase. Did the Mets really land the 26-year-old with a higher on-base percentage than everyone except Mickey Mantle and Jimmie Foxx at that age? The phenom who helped his team win the World Series before he could legally drink? The hired gun who sent the other New York team to the Fall Classic just last year with his epic homer against the Guardians? 

Yes. Yes they did. And there’s photographic evidence. 

I’m not that good at photoshop, I swear.

Soto arrived sometime around seven in the morning He hung out with his new teammates, later saying he was pleasantly surprised by the large number of Latin players on the squad. He chatted with his new manager. He would later admit he was nervous. How cute. While stretching a fan yelled, “Welcome to the team! Bring us the glory!” No pressure.

Soto emerged from the clubhouse in Mets gear, took the plastic off of a brand new bat and took some batting practice. At one point he made a disapproving grunt at a batted ball that ended up over the right-center field wall. He hit another baseball four-fifths of the way up the batters eye in straightaway center. That’ll do.

Soto spoke with reporters for about 15 minutes. He said he’s hungry for more championships. That he hasn’t made a ridiculously huge purchase yet, but we’ll see “it” soon enough (so, a car.) He called the Mets lineup “really good”, not going as far as Fernando Alvarez in declaring it the best just yet. He interestingly said Pete Alonso “came up a lot” when the Mets were recruiting him, months before Alonso officially re-signed with the team. He referred to Alonso as “one of the best power hitters in the game.” Soto said he wants to improve his baserunning and defense, in the latter case he wants to win a Gold Glove someday (despite the knocks from anonymous scouts recently about how he’ll be a glorified DH sooner rather than later, Soto was a gold glove finalist just last season.) He said the way to handle pressure in New York is to just win, which is true, he gets it. Soto echoed Francisco Lindor circa 2021 when he first arrived to the Mets by not annoying himself a savior, saying “I never say I could be the guy. I would say it's a whole team.” While he learned how to be a leader from the likes of Manny Machado and Aaron Judge, Soto pledged to stay the same person he was since day one, which I took to mean he’s not going to suddenly become everything to everybody. Which is good.

What was telling was the comments made by one Jakson Reetz, a catcher on a minor-league contract who came up with Soto in the Washington Nationals system. “He’s the same person he’s been since that day [they met],” Reetz told Tim Healey of Newsday. “Very humble. Goes about his work. You understand why he’s as good as he is . . . He’s an unbelievable human being. You guys are going to love him. He was super humble all the time and came in right away. ‘Reetzie, what’s up? How are you doing, man?’ We haven’t played together since ’21, so that was really cool.”

You guys are going to love him.

Yeah, I think so too, Mr. Reetz.

With Soto’s arrival, right fielder Starling Marte, on the last year of his four-year, $78 million pact with the Mets, became expendable. According to Pat Ragazzo at SI, the Mets had a deal on the table to trade Marte for Royals pitcher Hunter Harvey, with some money coming Kansas City’s way to help pay down Marte’s salary. But the Mets didn’t trade Starling, and now he’s in camp, well aware he was on the block. Because apparently they told him directly, before and after Soto’s signing. Marte was made available to the media yesterday, where he expressed that he was happy he was still with the Mets. For now, anyway. Marte said the Mets were “helpful” and “transparent” about the whole thing, which was good to hear. He also made the intriguing comment, “if they wanted to trade me, they would have traded me. ... I'm here for a reason.” That’s certainly a healthy attitude. He continued to say all the right things, including insisting he’s going to give his “best every single time, every opportunity that I’m going to get,” and that he will continue to help the younger players whenever they need it. All of his talk makes me hope he sticks around. The only problem is that, while injuries happen all the time and would give Marte a starting job through attrition, Marte himself is one of the dudes that tends to get hurt more often than the average player. His most recent ouchie, a deep knee bone bruise, means he won’t be appearing in Grapefruit League games right away. I think though he will stay. It seems to me that Marte was being shopped back when the Mets had the in retrospect silly illusion in their heads that they could get under the third and final luxury tax threshold and save Steve Cohen more than a few millions. But even if they somehow managed to shed all of Marte’s $19 million salary for 2025 (they won’t), they would still be over the last threshold because of the Pete Alonso signing.

Alonso by the way is due to arrive today with the other position players who haven’t shown up. Lindor was quoted as saying of Alonso, “I’m just happy he’s with us and I’m happy that he got good money.” Scott Boras confirmed on MLB Network Radio yesterday that nobody offered Pete more than a three year deal.

The Mets implored youths on their socials to join the Mets Kids club. You can sign up for free and get access to the Mr. and Mrs. Met Post Game Dash. That’s a sweet deal if you ask me. Back in my day it was called the Dynamets Dash. Even further back in the day I was a member of the Tropicana Mets Kids Club. (Weird that something isn’t sponsored today that used to be before, right?) I don’t remember what perks came with such a membership. That membership card and my Blockbuster card I’ve sadly lost track of over the years. Oh listen to this old fart babble on and on…

The Nationals signed Paul DeJong. Considering his elite Met Killer status, what took the divisional foes so long? 

Brett Baty is still getting work in at first base, even though Carlos Mendoza said the other day he’ll be playing second and third in spring training games. I wonder what that’s about.

Catcher Kevin Parada, a former first round pick who was supposed to compete with Francisco Alvarez as the main Met catcher of the future, lost 15 pounds this offseason by, among other things, swapping out pints of ice cream with packages of sea salt caramels. That…sounds like a terrible trade-off, but that’s always the case if you want to get serious about weight loss, right? We can’t all be Christian Scott, losing 5 pounds every time you do your job. 

Mendy’s comment on what Soto is going through right now was kind of funny: "I went through it last year. It feels like you’re meeting 50 people every day. And then the next day you come in and introduce yourself (and a person says), ‘No, I met you yesterday.’ Oh, sorry. He’s going to go through that."

Minor leaguer Matt Rudick will undergo Tommy John surgery. He was slated to get a promotion to Triple-A Syracuse and provide the organization with outfield depth. 

Last night was Saturday Night Live’s 50th Anniversary special. In honor of that I posted what I thought was the best Mets-related moment of the show’s history on BlueSky - a video from the cold open of the November 8, 1986 episode. (lord I wish you can post videos on Beehiiv that play within the post. Come on Beehiiv, get with it.) It featured Ron Darling apologizing for Game 6 of the 1986 World Series running so late that SNL had to tape their show at 1:30 early the following morning and not air it for a fortnight. “Believe me I’d gladly give back my World Series ring if it could bring the show back live,” Darling says. “But it won’t, so I’m keeping it.”

Look at the smile on Ronnie’s face. 

May Soto give that poop-eating grin to us all in seven months.

The Mets made the 50th anniversary special, actually. Nathan Lane sang that cocaine and vodka aided the 1980s Mets. It was one of those New York-centric sketches that always star John Mulaney, so I’m guessing he was the head writer on it. Mulaney seems to have an obsession with the ‘86 Mets. They’re referenced in Oh,Hello and in Big Mouth.

Today is President’s Day. To celebrate, here’s Richard Nixon being a creep to David Cone.

Okay here’s Cone after winning his 20th game of the 1988 season.

Mhm so far so good. Now it’s time to retreat to the friendly confines of the dugout. But wait, a teammate is trying to warn Coney about something.

GAH

“Remember when I talked circles around Robert Frost, son?”