There's No Replacing Juan Soto, But The Mets Will Do Their Best

[Andres Chavez]

Image courtesy of © Robert Edwards-Imagn Images

Earlier this week, it was revealed that New York Mets star Juan Soto will visit the injured list for the next two to three weeks as he recovers from a low-grade calf strain suffered last Friday. Considering the wide array of potentially worse outcomes, you can firmly say that both the team and the player dodged a bullet with the diagnosis.

However, that doesn’t change the fact that the Mets will be without their best hitter for a while, anywhere from a couple of weeks to close to a month depending on how the injury evolves.

Simply put, there’s no replacing Soto, not even if you are the manager of the NL All-Star team. He offers a unique offensive profile that’s almost impossible to replicate. The superstar outfielder had hit ‘just’ one home run before going down with his injury, yet was off to another incredible start this year; Soto was hitting .355 with three extra-base hits, five RBI, a 164 wRC+, three walks, an six strikeouts in eight games.

An Elite Performer Still Finding His Groove

Soto’s power and patience numbers weren’t at their best in his first eight games, yet only 14 National League hitters had a higher wRC+ than him as of the morning of his placement on the IL. This is an offensive machine entering his prime and about to post some scary stats in 2026 and the years to come.

Last year, Soto became a member of the 40-30 club after homering 43 times and stealing a career-high 38 bases, which is remarkable given his 13th percentile sprint speed. If you want to talk percentiles, however, you should take a look at his offensive profile.

In 2025, the Mets outfielder and perennial MVP candidate ranked in the 98th percentile in average exit velocity, 100th percentile in xwOBA, 97th percentile in barrel rate, 97th percentile in hard-hit rate, 100th percentile in chase rate, 96th percentile in expected batting average, and 100th percentile in walk rate. And, if you follow the Mets closely, you surely remember he was being criticized in the early stages of last year’s campaign because of his ‘slow’ start, which was basically a slightly lesser version of these stats.

What do all these percentiles mean? Well, the short answer is that Soto is a beast. The more elaborate response is that he is a nightmare matchup for pitchers because he combines elite contact ability, power, and plate discipline. Not even Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani have such an amazing combination of the three, even if their most prolific skill (power) is more noticeable in the box score than the otherworldly all-around contributions Soto offers.

Soto is a cheat code because he doesn’t chase, and when he swings, he basically murders the ball. His plate discipline is so legendary that his judgment of the strike zone often conditions umpires to make their calls.

A Legend In The Making

That’s what the Mets offense will be missing for the next couple of weeks, a guy with a legendary eye at the plate and 245 career long balls before turning 28. A few years ago, he was already flirting with 100 MLB homers at 23 years old, when some of the top prospects in the game weren’t even in Triple-A.

It takes a special talent to post a 146-wRC+ season over 494 plate appearances at 19 years old. Soto did it in 2018, and since then, he has only gotten better. This season, his Statcast profile hasn’t been all red like last year, but he only played eight games. That’s a tiny sample for some of these metrics to be stable, yet he still is in the 88th percentile in Statcast’s Batting Run Value.

Give him a couple of weeks to return and a few more to find his stride, and let’s re-visit these metrics in the late summer. It's not a stretch to say he's the best pure hitter in the world.

As for the Mets, they will probably have to use Brett Baty a lot, at least vs. righties. Tyrone Taylor and Jared Young, who is actually off to a strong start, will also be factors (Ronny Mauricio was called up to take his roster spot, but he won't be starting regularly). Replacing Soto, however, will require more than just a couple of reserve players doing a good job. Even the pitchers will need to step up their game for this injury not to derail New York’s first month.

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