Juan Soto smashes first Mets homer to second deck in second game with New York

Soto made his Mets debut on Opening Day a day earlier, going 1-for-3 with two walks and a strikeout in a 3-1 loss. He showed his plate discipline that day, and on Friday he showed his power in a 3-1 win.

It isn’t the first time he’s wowed that particular park with a moonshot, as he broke out on the national stage when he slugged a homer off Gerrit Cole to the train tracks for the Washington Nationals in the 2019 World Series.

Juan Soto will be a Met for a long time, and it wasn’t cheap

This week’s games are at the start of the most expensive tenure in the history of sports. Soto signed a record-shattering 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets in free agency last winter, and it’s even more valuable than you’d think when compared to Shohei Ohtani’s previously record-holding $700 million deal.

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Unlike Ohtani, Soto’s deal contains no deferred money. Unlike Ohtani, Soto’s deal has an opt-out that can be nullified by making it an $815 million deal. Having signed the longest contract in MLB history, Soto will be under Mets team control until he is 40 years old. That is what happens when you get the Mets and New York Yankees in a bidding war, with the Los Angeles Dodgers looming on the sidelines.

So the Mets will take their first Soto homer as quickly as they can, and preferably much more after that. Considering Darryl Strawberry is New York’s all-time home run leader with 252 (with Pete Alonso at 226 and counting) and Soto has averaged 34.8 homers per 162 games in his career (with 41 last year), it is entirely possible, if not probable, that Soto retires as the Mets’ new homer leader.