Juan Soto has always been known for his tremendous patience at the plate.
The star outfielder put that on full display during his first season with the Mets, finishing with a league-high 127 walks and a National League-best .396 on-base percentage.
During his mid-season struggles, though, hitting coach Eric Chavez did try to get him to shy away from that approach.
Chavez said on Thursday’s episode of Foul Territory that he spoke numerous times with manager Carlos Mendoza about potentially trying to get the 26-year-old to be more aggressive earlier in the count.
“There were some times where I talked to Carlos about if we could get him to swing maybe 0-0 or even at some pitches he could do damage on early in counts — but Juan is a precision hitter, I wouldn’t get him out of his comfort zone at all," Chavez said.
Soto’s first pitch swing rate dipped from last season with the Yankees (22.5 percent).
He also cut his chase rate down to an impressive 16.5 percent.
All of that led to Soto finishing with a career-high 43 homers and 105 RBI.
While the Mets decided to move on from Chavez last week, he did suggest one way they could get creative with Soto without getting him out of that comfort zone is by bumping him up to the top spot in the order.
Soto has only been slotted there twice to this point in his big-league career.
“Juan is so good at getting on-base,” Chavez said. “There are times where things are going and you’re in the middle of the lineup. Like Pete Alonso, we know Pete is going to chase, Pete is going to do damage. Juan can drive in 140 runs, but instead of doing that where you’re telling him to get out of his comfort zone, slide him into the leadoff spot.
“He steals bases, he gets on base at a 40 percent clip, don’t have him get out of his comfort zone of what he likes to do, but you could be just as dynamic out of the leadoff spot if you look at what Shohei [Ohtani] has done. Without changing the player too much, just change where he hits in the battling lineup.”
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