Juan Soto misses Aaron Judge.
Juan Soto may be wearing a different shade of blue this year, but it seems the Yankee pinstripes, and the guy who bats after him, still linger in his thoughts.
The New York Mets’ $765 million man is off to a lukewarm start in 2025, and in a recent moment of reflection, he may have offered just a bit too much honesty about why things felt smoother in the Bronx.
“It’s definitely different,” Soto told The New York Post. “I had the best hitter in baseball hitting behind me. I was getting more attacked and more pitches in the strike zone, less intentional walks and things like that. Was pitched differently last year.”
That “best hitter in baseball”? None other than Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ towering captain, 2x MVP, and Soto’s not-so-secret weapon during their one-season superteam run. Aaron Judge won AL MVP in 2024. Juan Soto was the second runner-up. The combo was electric: Soto batted .288 with 41 homers, 109 RBIs, and a .989 OPS in 2024, arguably the best year of his career. It took the Yankees all the way to the World Series before a heartbreaking loss to the Dodgers.
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And then came heartbreak No. 2 – when Juan Soto chose Queens over the Bronx.
The Mets won the sweepstakes with a historic 15-year, $765 million offer. Soto packed up and crossed town, leaving behind Judge, a chance at World Series redemption with the Yankees, and about half of Manhattan’s baseball-loving population in emotional ruins.
So far in 2025, the return hasn’t quite matched the investment. In 56 at-bats, Soto has 14 hits, two home runs, six walks, and an OPS of .829. Not bad, but not $765 million good either.
Of course, some of that could be chalked up to the Judge-sized hole in the lineup. Being “protected” in a lineup is a real thing. Pitchers couldn’t afford to pitch around Soto when they knew Aaron Judge was looming in the on-deck circle. And now? Well, they’ve got a little more wiggle room.
Still, it’s not like Soto is hitting behind a traffic cone in Queens. Pete Alonso is mashing. The Polar Bear is putting up better numbers than Soto right now, and doing exactly what’s asked of a slugger in that spot. Which makes Soto’s comments, whether innocent nostalgia or subtle shade, feel just a bit off-key. Alonso might not be Judge, but he is doing his part.
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To be fair, Soto didn’t say Alonso isn’t helping. But calling Judge “the best hitter in baseball”, not one of the best, the best, while struggling under a shiny new contract isn’t the kind of thing that lands softly in a new clubhouse.
Regardless, it’s hard to blame Soto for reminiscing. What he and Judge created last season was historic. Two megastars in the same lineup, combining for 99 home runs and some of the most must-watch baseball the Bronx has seen since Ruth and Gehrig shared a dugout.
It was fleeting, it was beautiful, and it was gone too fast.
But that’s the thing with special moments, they rarely announce themselves as history in the making. You only realize later, as Juan Soto seems to be doing now, just how rare that kind of magic is.
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