Juan Soto’s Shoddy Defense Could Cost Mets During Stretch Run

His bat has never been an issue during his first season in Flushing. Soto’s 41 home runs, 100 RBI, league-leading 119 walks and .922 OPS through 151 games played are in line with his career averages. He even has a chance to be a 40-40 man with a surprising 33 stolen bases swiped.

The problem is that Soto is so disastrous in the outfield that he could cost the Mets at any given moment and in critical situations. Soto often struggles to read the ball off the bat. His frequency of misjudging fly balls and bad routes in the outfield causes base hits to drop and runners to take extra bases.

Soto’s range is atrocious. He doesn’t get off to good sprints. Even his arm has fallen below average. According to FanGraphs, his fielding run value is -11, his range is -10 outs above average, his arm value is -2 and his arm strength is 86.6.

It doesn’t matter that he’s being paid $51.8 million. Soto is going to keep declining defensively as he ages. Why not just pull the plug now? If that means less at bats for Mark Vientos, so be it.

The 79-74 Mets are currently in the midst of a four-team race for the final National League Wild Card spot. If the season ended today, the sixth-seeded Amazins would take the final Wild Card place and face the third-seeded Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Wild Card series.

Since the start of September, the Mets have limped to a 6-10 record. The Cincinnati Reds, Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants are all within three games of the final Wild Card spot.

Soto’s miscues and bad routes could lead to game-changing runs and open the door for the chasing pack to overtake the Mets. Mendoza would be wise to only write him in the lineup as DH from here forward.