Juan Soto, at this writing, is hitting .218, which, yeah, batting average doesn’t mean anything anymore. But his OBP is .367, his slugging is .440. All are 95 to 100 points off where he was in 2021.
You can write it off as, it’s early, but it’s not exactly early anymore. The second half of June, two weeks from the midway point of the season, isn’t early.
So, what’s off?
It’s worth a deep dive to see what.
Analytics
All numbers are from FanGraphs.
Soto’s average exit velocity on balls put in play is 89.8 mph so far in 2022. Last year, his EV was at a career-high 93.0 mph.
His barrel rate is 12.7 percent, down slightly from 13.3 percent in 2021, and his career-best 17.5 percent in 2020.
The hard-hit rate (EVs of 95 mph or better) is noticeably down – at 44.7 percent, from 52.4 percent in 2021, and 51.6 percent in 2020.
His soft percentage: 23.4 percent. That’s way up – he was at 15.9 percent in 2021, 15.1 percent in 2020, 12.5 percent in 2019.
His line-drive percentage: 12.2 percent, down from 18.6 percent in 2021, 19.8 percent in 2020, 21.2 percent back in 2019.
It’s not because he’s pulling off the ball – his pull percentage in 2022 is 34.0 percent, which is down slightly from his career rate (35.4 percent).
He is less selective than last year – 21.3 percent of his swings are at pitches outside the strike zone, up from 15.1 percent in 2021, but in line with his career rate (20.4 percent).
One number that is out of line in terms of those swings – 72.4 percent of his swings on pitches out of the zone area make contact, up nearly 10 percent (from 62.6 percent) from 2021.
This may correlate to his .213 BABIP – batting average on balls in play – down from his .332 BABIP in 2021 and .363 in 2020.
Basically, he’s swinging at more pitches out of the zone, making contact with more of those pitches, and more of those pitches are being put into play, and leading to outs.
Analysis
Nats manager Dave Martinez experimented for a few weeks at the beginning of the 2022 season batting Soto in the #2 spot, the idea being to get him a few more at bats over the course of the season, and maybe also to make it harder to pitch around him.
He’s still getting pitched around a fair amount – though his .183 BB/PA ratio is down 17.6 percent from the .222 BB/PA ratio he posted in 2021.
This itself is almost certainly related to the increase in swings on pitches out of the zone.
I think what happened here is, Soto, not seeing a lot of RBI opportunities in the #2 spot, started pressing, trying to create opportunities, fell into bad habits swinging at more pitches out of the zone, and pitchers are taking advantage.
The way out is for Soto to just trust the guys behind him. Josh Bell (.294/.378/.476, 11 HR, 44 RBI) and Nelson Cruz (.250/.333/.381, 7 HR, 37 RBI) are only around until the trade deadline, but they’re there for now, and they have decent numbers for middle-of-the-order guys.
If they’re going to walk you, essentially, let them. Get on base, let Bell and Cruz clean things up.
Putting bad pitches in play isn’t doing anybody any good.
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Chris Graham
