With Free Agency Approaching, Juan Soto Is Better Than Ever

Juan Soto is one of the best players in baseball. You already knew that. But what you may not have realized is that 2024 Juan Soto is a better player than any version of Soto we’ve ever seen before.

The New York Yankees right fielder is slashing .306/.434/.608, good for a 190 wRC+ on the season. He entered the year with a ridiculous .284/.421/.524 career slash line and an equally absurd 154 wRC+. He was already one of the greatest young hitters in recent history. Yet, his performance in 2024 puts his career numbers to shame.

The difference between 2024 Soto (190 wRC+) and 2019-23 Soto (154 wRC+) is 36 points of wRC+. That’s the same as the difference between 2019-23 Soto and 2024 JJ Bleday (118 wRC+). Think about the massive offensive upgrade from JJ Bleday to typical Juan Soto. That’s how much Soto has improved himself.

Soto is on pace to set new career-highs in hits, extra-base hits, home runs, RBI, and runs scored. As if that weren’t enough, he has taken quite nicely to right field at Yankee Stadium. He has the highest DRS (+6) and Statcast FRV (+3) of his career.

Thus, Soto has already surpassed his previous career-high in WAR, according to both FanGraphs and Baseball Reference. He is on pace for 9.8 fWAR and bWAR. In most years, that would all but guarantee him a unanimous selection for MVP.

The 25-year-old is also putting up the highest average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and barrel rate of his career. His launch angle sweet-spot rate is the highest it’s been since 2019.

Soto has always been able to hit the ball hard enough that it didn’t matter that he wasn’t often hitting it at an ideal launch angle. His sweet-spot rate ranked in the 10th percentile or below every year from 2021-23.

This year, it’s up in the 67th percentile. And he’s hitting the ball harder. As a result, no qualified hitter has seen a higher year-over-year increase in barrel rate.

Simply put, Soto is making better contact than ever, so it only stands to reason he’s getting better results.

So, if anyone dares to suggest Soto is merely getting lucky, he can point to his .475 xwOBA, which is 44 points higher than his .431 wOBA. By those metrics, Soto has been the second-most unlucky qualified hitter in the game.

If you did a double-take when you read that xwOBA figure, I promise you’re not alone. Nobody ever has an xwOBA that high.

Well, almost nobody. Only three qualified batters have ever had an xwOBA over .470 in a season – and two of them are Juan Soto.

The other player, as you can see, is Aaron Judge, who just so happens to be having an even better season in the same year and the same uniform as Soto.

Soto is setting new career highs in just about every statistical category. Yet, Judge seems to have him beat in almost every one of them.

Unfortunately, the combination of Soto’s pre-existing stellar reputation and Judge’s otherworldly talent (not to mention Bobby Witt Jr.) has prevented far too many people from noticing what an incredible season Soto is having.

It might sound silly to suggest a player like Soto is underrated, but I really don’t think enough people realize the extent to which he has upped his game in 2024.

Juan Soto is one of the best players in baseball this year. But he was already one of the best players in baseball. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like anything is different.

Soto will finish the year with another All-Star appearance, another Silver Slugger, and another top-three MVP finish under his belt. But he’s done all of that before.

He was already writing his Hall of Fame case before this season ever happened. And the truth is, he didn’t need a season like this on his resume to look like a future first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Combine all that with the fact that he isn’t even the best outfielder on his own team, and you can see why Soto’s great season is flying under the radar.

Get Ready Free Agency, Juan Soto Is Coming for You

Thankfully for Soto, he will not be overshadowed by Aaron Judge – or anyone else – this winter.

Soto will hit the free agent market as the best player available, and unequivocally so. Indeed, one could make a compelling case that he will be the best available free agent in MLB history.

With his 26th birthday coming up at the end of October, Soto will be more than three younger than Shohei Ohtani was last offseason. He’ll be more than four years younger than Aaron Judge was the year before.

He may not be quite as talented as either Ohtani or Judge, nor does he offer the same off-the-field marketing appeal. However, Soto comes with almost no history of injury, and the significance of his relative youth cannot be overstated. There is a massive difference between reaching free agent at 26 years old versus reaching free agency at 29 or 30.

Judge’s nine-year, $360 million deal? Please. That will only be a starting point for Soto’s negotiations.

And while I don’t see Soto coming anywhere close to Ohtani’s $700 million guarantee, he could certainly beat Ohtani’s contact in terms of present-day value.

Ohtani’s 10-year deal is worth approximately $460.8 million for luxury tax purposes. Soto will most likely sign a longer pact – 12, 13, or even 14 years seems believable – so he could easily surpass $500 million in present-day value.

Juan Soto is playing the best baseball of his spectacular career. When it comes to the 2024 AL MVP race, his timing couldn’t be worse. But with his first foray into free agency on the horizon, his huge step forward could not have come at a better moment.

Stats updated prior to games on August 14.

Update: And of course, Juan Soto went 1-for-2 with another home run and three walks last night, scoring three times. He is now slashing .307/.438/.615 with a 192 wRC+ and 7.5 fWAR on the season.