Juan Soto didn’t exactly light the world on fire during his return to Yankee Stadium over the weekend.
Back in the Bronx for the first time since spurning the Yankees and signing a record-breaking 15-year, $765 million deal with the Mets, Soto started strong with a walk and a stolen base in his first plate appearance. After that? Not much. He went 1-for-10 the rest of the way with three walks, three strikeouts, no extra-base hits, and no RBIs.
To cap it off, he didn’t bother running out a ground ball in a 2-2 game during Sunday night’s eventual 8-2 loss.
That’s more of an optics problem than a performance issue, but it was enough to rile up the New York media machine.
Boomer Esiason, for one, had plenty to say about it Monday morning on WFAN.
“Juan Soto just had a brutal three days,” Esiason said Monday morning. “He can smile all he wants. He can take his helmet off and acknowledge the boos all he wants on Friday night. At the end of the day, it was a bad weekend for him. So, now he and his family can get on the private jet and go up to Boston. That was interesting that Karl Ravech said that part of it yesterday.”
But Ravech didn’t actually say Soto wasn’t flying with the team. What he did say on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball is that Soto’s contract includes family-oriented perks, specifically charter flights for his family to attend road games. It’s part of the broader pitch the Mets made when courting Soto, positioning themselves as a player- and family-friendly organization.
Drawing the conclusion from Ravech’s comments that Soto’s family has a private charter jet for every road game is categorically false, according to ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan.
Both Steve and Alex Cohen have fully embraced Soto and his inner circle. But that embrace doesn’t mean Soto gets to operate as a one-man show, flying separately from his teammates whenever he wants, at least not based on anything Ravech said.
But that wasn’t the only exaggeration of Ravech’s comments.
Esiason’s WFAN co-host Gregg Giannotti claimed he heard Ravech say Soto was “begging” to get the mic off and desperately trying to back out of being featured during ESPN’s in-game interview segment.
That’s not what Ravech said.
He said Soto pulled out about 45 minutes before first pitch, and Brandon Nimmo filled in.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
And to be fair to Soto, ESPN apparently planned to ask him about Aaron Judge and the Yankees, not the Mets. Hard to blame him for passing on that one.
Boomer kept going on the jet angle, pointing to what he saw as a potential chemistry issue brewing.
“Remember when the Yankees were saying, ‘We’re not going to give Juan Soto a suite because we don’t give our players suites,'” Esiason asked. “Who knew that Juan Soto was getting a private jet on top of all of this to away games. The point being is that if Juan Soto’s putting up huge numbers and Juan Soto’s coming through, nobody really cares about that. Then, all of a sudden when that doesn’t happen and somebody else is coming for a contract extension, and the Mets treat that guy like crap compared to what that guy thinks Juan Soto has, that’s where the schism happens.”
That dynamic didn’t prevent the Mets from signing other free agents this winter or from extending Pete Alonso.
“Like, I almost fell out of my chair last night when I heard Ravech say that,” Esiason said. “Because I knew he had gotten a suite.
So no, Soto isn’t James Harden-ing his way through the season. He’s flying with the team like everyone else.
Despite what Esiason might say.
“The point is that you want him to be a part of the team,” Esiason adds. “You want him to really — I want him to get the most money as he possibly can, and I guess all the perks that come along with it. I guess that’s a part of it in baseball, but you know, it’s like the whole James Harden thing in basketball. It just does not lend itself to creating a cohesive team.”