By almost any metric, New York Yankees star Aaron Judge is the best hitter in baseball for the class of 2024. Entering Tuesday’s play, Judge is batting .322 and has hit eight more home runs than any other player. He holds a 19-point lead in on-base percentage, 70-point lead in slugging percentage, 122-point lead in OPS and 32-point lead in OPS+. Judge is 1-1.
One of the few hitters who can compare to Judge is his teammate, Juan Soto. Soto is the only effective hitter to start with an on-base percentage of four (.437) and ranks in the top five in batting average (.310), slugging percentage (.598), OPS (1.035) and OPS+ (187). Soto is coming off one of the best offensive seasons of any Yankee in the expansion era (since 1961).
2024 Aaron Judge: 217 OPS+2022 Aaron Judge: 210 OPS+1961 Mickey Mantle: 206 OPS+1962 Mickey Mantle: 195 OPS+2024 Juan Soto: 187 OPS+
“He’s been a leader for us all year,” Judge told ESPN in June about Soto. “Anytime we play a good team like this and our fans are paying to come and watch us play, they want to see us play at our best.”
Judge is the best offensive player in baseball and was intentionally walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the second inning last Saturday. Soto, despite being a very good and highly-regarded player, has been content to play second fiddle to Judge. I don’t think Soto has often been the second-best hitter on his team in his career.
With just over seven weeks left in the regular season, Soto has essentially tied his previous career high in WAR (7.0 WAR in 2024 vs. 7.1 WAR in 2021), and it comes at a great time with free agency looming. Soto is still just 25 years old; he won’t turn 26 until October. While he’s been good so far in his career, Soto is likely reaching the peak of his career.
Here’s what you need to know about Soto’s monster season as he prepares to hit the free agent market.
Soto’s best ever
This season is shaping up to be the best season of Soto’s career. He has 109 games in 2024, and what he’s done in those 109 games is better than any season of his career so far. We’ll ignore 2020 for now, since it was a weird 60-game season that everyone wants to forget. Other than that, here are Soto’s best numbers in those 109 games:
batting average
.310
.304 in 2021
On-base percentage
.437
.444 in 2021
Slugging percentage
.598
.545 in 2019
operation
1.035
.959 in 2021
Home Run
28
25th in 2019
Total bases
241
2019 216 cases
Number of times on base
219
205 in 2021
Soto is leading the league in every measure except on-base percentage, and in most cases is well above his previous career highs. 2019 was a home run yearHe also got on base 25 more times. He also got on base 14 more times. That’s not a small difference! That’s Soto’s best stats in 109 games.
Additionally, Soto has the highest average exit velocity (94.7 mph) and hard-hit rate (58.2%) of his career, and the second-lowest ground ball rate (44.0%). Not that they’re far off. Soto’s career best so far came in 2023, when he had an exit velocity of 93.2 mph and a hard-hit rate of 55.4%. To pitch a no-hitter in baseball, you need elite bat speed, elite contact rate, and elite at-bat discipline, like Soto did.
Outside of stealing bases, there is nothing Soto does offensively that is less than an elite level. He is an elite power hitter, an elite on-base percentage player, an elite batting average hitter, elite exit velocity and contact rate, and so much more. Soto is a precocious hitting talent and is currently the best he has been in his career. He has managed to take his game to a new level.
He’s not getting much help from Yankee Stadium
Soto is a left-handed hitter, and when the Yankees acquired him in December, it was a given that he would benefit from Yankee Stadium’s short right-field porch. True, Soto has performed better at home than on the road this season, but the difference is only 29 points in OPS…
House
225
.313/.436/.615
13
16.0%
17.7%
road
276
.308/.438/.584
15
15.6%
18.8%
…And he’s hitting roughly one home run every 18 at-bats, both at home and on the road. Of Soto’s 13 home runs at home, only six were hit into right field, and all six would have been home runs in at least 27 of the other 29 stadiums, according to Statcast. Here’s his home run chart at Yankee Stadium:
Baseball Master
Soto should probably use the short porch more often and not hit so many balls into left-center field (the widest part of Yankee Stadium). That being said, this is Juan Soto. Who am I to tell him what to do at the plate? The bottom line is that Soto’s year in what is shaping up to be the best of his career isn’t being driven by the short-right porch at Yankee Stadium. He’s hitting hard all over the place.
His defense has also improved.
Yankee Stadium’s narrow right field helps Soto more defensively than offensively. He’s never been a great defender, but his defense this year falls into the “average or slightly better” category rather than “terrible.” Soto occasionally makes defensive plays that make his hitting seem too good to be true. But overall, his defense has been solid this season.
Below are Soto’s defensive stats excluding the pandemic season of 2020. Note that he has switched back and forth between right and left field throughout his career.
LF 2018
-Four
-Five
LF 2019
+2
+7
RF in 2021
-1
+0
RF 2022
-2
-13
2023 LF
+1
+0
RF 2024
+8
+1
For his career, Soto has a DRS minus-15 and OAA minus-10 in nearly 4,000 innings as a left fielder and a DRS plus-9 and OAA minus-7 in over 3,400 innings as a right fielder. There’s reason to think Soto would be more comfortable in right field, where the Yankees have him, and Yankee Stadium gives him less coverage to defend.
This is shaping up to be the best year of Soto’s career, not just at the plate but defensively as well. Then again, he’s not a solid right fielder. He’s an average defender, maybe a little better depending on how you compare DRS and OAA. An elite batter and an average glove equals one of the best players in the world. And Soto is that very thing.
He does it while hurting
Watch the Yankees day to day and you’ll notice two things: Judge and Soto play well, and Soto grimaces and shakes his right hand after swinging or sliding. He injured his hand while sliding at home plate on June 28 and has, in his words, “struggled” ever since. Soto was in visible pain after his double on Sunday.
“My hand is still shaking. It definitely still hurts to touch it. I slid hard and hit the base. It hurt for a few seconds, but it went away,” Soto said about Sunday’s game (via the New York Post ). “[My mindset is]forget it. I’m just going to go out there and swing the bat. I’ll worry about the pain afterwards. That’s what I’ve been doing.”
The hand injury hasn’t affected Soto’s production one bit. In the June 28 game (the game he first injured his hand), he was batting .300/.432/.570. In the 28 games since, he’s batting .330/.444/.670. It’s clear that Soto isn’t 100%, as he winces in pain every game, but somehow he’s playing better since the injury than when he was healthy.
Soto is one of the top three or four hitters in baseball this season, but he’s still only the second best hitter on the team. That’s how good Judge is. Given his age, track record and durability, Soto will likely sign a free agent record contract this offseason. I don’t think it’s impossible for him to beat Shohei Ohtani’s $700 million long-term extension contract. Unlikely? Yes, it’s possible, but impossible? Not likely. Special players get special contracts, and Soto is the most special player in the game.
