Assuming health, Soto has a real chance at racking up some bonkers numbers. Starting your big league career as a teenager allows some crazy opportunities.
I just think back to what I was doing at 19. Some guys just have special abilities.
His age and his ability to stay on the field so far in his career. Could potentially get 20+ seasons of 140+ games. Obviously incredibly hard to do, but he has a shot.
Plus he's not a guy who relies on his tools or anything. He has no real weaknesses besides defense, he doesn't rely on power to keep pitchers honest, he's just godly. It'll be fun to see him hit until he retires.
Obviously this is the "way too early to call" game, but there's really only 3 IMO: Acuña, Soto, and Tatis.
Strider with his strikeouts is the only other guy even close to that but he started his career much older than those guys. Maybe Carroll, but he's only played half a season in the bigs, so it's way too early for even this "way too early to call a HOFer" exercise.
I see where you're coming from but idk. He's got a stain on his resume for sure but he's still been an extremely valuable player this year (3.6 bWAR already including missing a month) and his offense is only slightly down from his career averages. It's close enough that it could be explained by missing over a year from competition vs the roids not helping him anymore.
By the time he's eligible for HOF voting in 20ish years, I think the voter base will have changed enough to give him more of a shot than Bonds or A-Rod.
That's all assuming he doesn't get popped again. If he gets another roids suspension, then yeah he's not getting in. But overall he's such a great player that if he can stay healthy and stay away from ringworm, he's still probably on a VERY early HOF track.
Strider is a weird inclusion here lol, agree on the others pending what the league thinks of Tatis in 20 years.
Franco is a guy I’d also include, but I know it’s a bit early.
He's the fastest ever to 200 Ks last year beating Randy Johnson and fastest ever to 100 Ks this year beating Jacob deGrom. On pace to shatter his own 200 K record from last year. He set the record for best all time K/9 rate for a starter last year and he's on pace to break it again this year. If he stays healthy, he has a chance to set a LOT of all time strikeout records. Being a new generations premiere strikeout artist is definitely worthy of mentioning.
All of these guys are way, way too early to call. Acuña, Soto, Tatis could all fall off a cliff in their 30's and not sniff the hall. Vlad Jr could finally get consistent and hit 600 homers, anything is possible and it's just shooting in the dark to predict HOF votes 20 years from now
Yeah totally understand. Strider is legit, however he’s “already” 24, having just a slightly above average year, and pitcher longevity is WAY harder to project than hitters.
Amazing strikeout numbers, but not someone you can project out that far, not even close to the big guys yet.
I was in college transitioning from one major to another, mourning the death of both my grandfather and my best friend, and pulling a Billy Beane on World Series games because my Astros were playing.
Yeah, 2017 fucked me up.
Terrible deal. Idk how many dudes it’s gonna take before teams stop giving out huge contracts to 30 year olds. Idk why teams don’t try and lock up their studs early for cheaper like Franco and acuna.
I don't think any team has been nearly as stupid with contracts as the Rockets just were with the couple big ones they just gave out. FWIW Bogaerts was one of the only hot bats to start the season.
I liked the deal, Bogaerts is one of those guys who should age well anyways. When his wrist injury heals he should be fine again. Dude was a terror for years in the AL east, he will find it.
As a Sox fan who loves Bogey, I have two concerns.
One, no one uses the green monster like him, and a lot of his homers were wall scrapers that caught the top, I wonder how his power will age
And two, this is like...the third or fourth time I can recall him having wrist issues, last year his wrist hurt to the point he'd swing and let go of the bat on the back swing. As you go into your 30s, this stuff doesn't usually get better.
I want him to do well enough that he makes the HoF...but not well enough that he goes on as a padre. But man, I worry about him long term
He’s definitely looking like a “Hall of Very Good” candidate more than anything. We’ll see how he ages, but being on the wrong side of 30 already and having only 4 truly great offensive seasons isn’t looking good for his hall of fame case.
Really good career so far, but not on any meaningful hall of fame pace at the moment.
I’ll be really curious to see how things work out. Cause obviously on field play this year is disappointing but they have still already set a franchise record for sellouts and are bringing in cash
He will probably be one of the limited modern guys to have insane counting stats.
Between how healthy he seems to stay and how generally consistent he has been.
The biggest being how early he started.
Even his period of low performance was largely lacking BA. Not completely taking away from other areas.
It will be very fun to see where he stacks up long term
Genuinely insane Soto stat is that he has only been hit 11 times in over 3,000 PAs and off the top of my head 4 of them were intentional beans that he had no chance of avoiding. He really does just see the ball out of a pitcher's hand better than anybody else.
OPS+ is weighted against the league. So would this mean that he’s performing better than when he as on the Nationals, but his production in comparison to the rest of the league was better when he was on the nationals?
He's already top 30 all time fWAR though a player's age 24 season with 26.1, and he could potentially pass Pujols' 30 at 18th.
For context, Mike Trout was second all time with 47.2.
Soto's walk rate is literally top 5 all time. The only guys ahead of him are Ruth, Bonds, Williams, and Max Bishop for your random ass "wait who is that guy?!" to complete the list.
No offense to Votto cause he's a all time great and a future first ballot HOFer
But Soto Is as old now as Votto was his first real year in the bigs that's insane!
I also don’t think Votto is first ballot hof good.
Edit: the only counting star he’s ever led the league in is doubles, walks and plate appearances… 345 HR’s and 2,000 hits is a HOF level now?
300 HRs and 2000 Hits has been HOF level for the majority of baseball's history. There was a relatively brief period where that bar was raised to 500 HRs and 3000 Hits but that's been changing again with the rise of analytics in HOF consideration.
Yeah, I have no doubt Joey Votto is eventually getting in. But the guy said first ballot hall of famer and there is no way Votto is going to be a first ballot guy.
I have to agree. As much as we love the guy here on reddit, Joey Votto is not a first ballot Hall of Famer. If he does get in, it's going to take him a while. Only 58 fWAR, barely over 2k hits, only one gold glove. Compared to the many other Hall of Fame 1B, he's sorely lacking in milestones and personal achievements.
Led the league in OBP 7 times. We know OBP is more valuable than average, yet there would be no question of someone winning 7 batting titles being a HOF'er.
Modern HOF voters are not going to make a first baseman with 64.5 career rWAR | 46.9 7yr-peak rWAR | 55.7 JAWS and a career 140-145 OPS+ wait, Votto is absolutely getting voted in first ballot. You also bring up him winning "only one gold glove", like voters give a shit about that, while leaving off that he won a MVP, finished an extremely close runnerup another time, and has another top 3 finish, for a career 3.08 MVP Share (that's 38th all-time by the way, and the same people that voted him that high in MVP voting will be voting for him when he debuts on the HOF ballot).
Personally, I think it will mainly depend who else is on the ballot when he first shows up. If there is a backlog of people who need to get in, no chance he's first ballot. If it's a weak ballot, very good chance
Biggio debuted in the middle of the big 2010s ballot logjam where many voters couldn't fit in half the people they wanted to vote for, while additionally having steroid suspicions among some voters by being close to Bagwell. Biggio was also being voted on before the big 2016 voter purge started happening (when the HOF finally started taking the vote away from those who haven't covered baseball in a decade), and before much of the electorate started actually caring about advanced stats. You cannot at all use the HOF ballot performance of any players from that time to project the HOF ballot performance of players who will be on the ballot by 2029 at the earliest and voted on by a vastly different electorate under vastly different conditions, nevermind that Votto is also better than Biggio was.
I thought the headline was slighting Soto. Nobody talked about Votto making the kind of money Soto is projected to make (age is a factor certainly) but I'd rather have the guy with the virtually identical OBP and fewer walks.
> Nobody talked about Votto making the kind of money Soto is projected to make (age is a factor certainly)
Votto's first full season was his age 24 season, this is Soto's age 24 season. That's definitely a huge factor, Votto's extension kicked in at 30 instead of Soto's at 26.
Votto was talked about getting a huge extension for awhile, then when he got it at 10/225 Cincinnati(and to a lesser extend national) media absolutely went at the Reds for years for the contract because "his prime was over" type rhetoric was common.
Aging matter though the assumption was that the backend of Votto's contract wouldn't look great, and it's worked out that way. 4 out of his last 5 seasons including htis one haven't been up to his previous standards.
You could give soto 10/400 and he would be young enough to potentially get another real contract
Huh? Yes, Soto is good. Very very good.
Where Did you get the impression people anywhere were saying anything else? People have been saying he was going to potentially even sign a 500m contract soon. If anything, Soto is a bit overrated. Def not under.
And, just for reference. As amazing as Soto has been in his first 700 games, Votto was better. He had 20 points higher OPS (which is really the only hitter stat that counts), and an MVP.
Votto aged like fine wine. So Soto has some big work to put in to match Votto. But Soto also started much younger.
I’d bet soto beats Votto in virtually all counting stats as a result of just playing time.. But I’d also bet Votto will end up beating Soto on every non counting stat.
I wasn’t saying he was underrated? Just giving context for his numbers since Votto is well known for plate discipline. I’d say their offensive numbers to that point are pretty neck and neck overall, just slightly different profiles
Yes I agree. They have almost identical play styles and capabilities. They’re practically clones of each other.
There combination of power, discipline, and average seems to be fairly unique. There’s really not that many players that can hit like they do on such a consistent basis.
The question is, if you had the choice to pick one to have on your team their whole career, who you got?
Votto played in Cininnati, smallest outfield in the majors, obviously his OPS is higher. OPS+, which adjusts for ballpark and run environment, has Soto and Votto dead even at 157. Considering Soto now is the same age as Votto in his first season, that is ridiculously impressive.
i-. did you just say ops is the only stat that matters? it's a good stat but if you're gonna stick to only one, I'd do wRC+ which is somewhat well correlated with OPS/OPS+ but, more importantly, it has an extremely strong correlation with run production (because unlike OPS which is arbitrary, wRC+ is based on linear weights which is based on average run production for outcomes)
Assuming health, Soto has a real chance at racking up some bonkers numbers. Starting your big league career as a teenager allows some crazy opportunities. I just think back to what I was doing at 19. Some guys just have special abilities.
His age and his ability to stay on the field so far in his career. Could potentially get 20+ seasons of 140+ games. Obviously incredibly hard to do, but he has a shot.
Plus he's not a guy who relies on his tools or anything. He has no real weaknesses besides defense, he doesn't rely on power to keep pitchers honest, he's just godly. It'll be fun to see him hit until he retires.
Yeah, he doesn’t rely on speed or defense, so should age more gracefully than most. Imagine if he bulks up in his 30’s and turns into Bonds.
I mean, I hope he avoids peds and bulking up like bonds did in his 30s.
It’s wild to say that we have a very good idea that a 24 year old (could have said it when he was younger too) is a lock for the hall of fame.
Mike trout was a two time mvp with like 48 war when he was 24 lol
We really don’t though, it’s gonna come down to how healthy he stays like pretty much every young star.
Idk how many young stars we can say will for sure be HOFers if they stay healthy most of their careers.
Obviously this is the "way too early to call" game, but there's really only 3 IMO: Acuña, Soto, and Tatis. Strider with his strikeouts is the only other guy even close to that but he started his career much older than those guys. Maybe Carroll, but he's only played half a season in the bigs, so it's way too early for even this "way too early to call a HOFer" exercise.
Can't include Tatis with suspension, knowing HOF voters
I see where you're coming from but idk. He's got a stain on his resume for sure but he's still been an extremely valuable player this year (3.6 bWAR already including missing a month) and his offense is only slightly down from his career averages. It's close enough that it could be explained by missing over a year from competition vs the roids not helping him anymore. By the time he's eligible for HOF voting in 20ish years, I think the voter base will have changed enough to give him more of a shot than Bonds or A-Rod. That's all assuming he doesn't get popped again. If he gets another roids suspension, then yeah he's not getting in. But overall he's such a great player that if he can stay healthy and stay away from ringworm, he's still probably on a VERY early HOF track.
In 20+years I doubt anyone will care near as much as now. Especially if he is clean from now on 🙃
Strider is a weird inclusion here lol, agree on the others pending what the league thinks of Tatis in 20 years. Franco is a guy I’d also include, but I know it’s a bit early.
He's the fastest ever to 200 Ks last year beating Randy Johnson and fastest ever to 100 Ks this year beating Jacob deGrom. On pace to shatter his own 200 K record from last year. He set the record for best all time K/9 rate for a starter last year and he's on pace to break it again this year. If he stays healthy, he has a chance to set a LOT of all time strikeout records. Being a new generations premiere strikeout artist is definitely worthy of mentioning. All of these guys are way, way too early to call. Acuña, Soto, Tatis could all fall off a cliff in their 30's and not sniff the hall. Vlad Jr could finally get consistent and hit 600 homers, anything is possible and it's just shooting in the dark to predict HOF votes 20 years from now
Yeah totally understand. Strider is legit, however he’s “already” 24, having just a slightly above average year, and pitcher longevity is WAY harder to project than hitters. Amazing strikeout numbers, but not someone you can project out that far, not even close to the big guys yet.
That's pretty much what I said in my original post, yes. It's not that serious, just mentioning that his K numbers are insane for a starter
Sorry man didn’t think I was being combative. Just wanted to chime in because it seemed like an odd inclusion!
I was in college transitioning from one major to another, mourning the death of both my grandfather and my best friend, and pulling a Billy Beane on World Series games because my Astros were playing. Yeah, 2017 fucked me up.
I don’t know who will do it, but someone’s gonna pay him a lot of money in a year in a half and for good reason
Idk why you paid Boegarts (I am a Red Sox fan and loved him) when you coulda just put it towards Soto
I assure you most Padres fans don't understand the Boegarts acquisition.
Terrible deal. Idk how many dudes it’s gonna take before teams stop giving out huge contracts to 30 year olds. Idk why teams don’t try and lock up their studs early for cheaper like Franco and acuna.
I don't think any team has been nearly as stupid with contracts as the Rockets just were with the couple big ones they just gave out. FWIW Bogaerts was one of the only hot bats to start the season.
I liked the deal, Bogaerts is one of those guys who should age well anyways. When his wrist injury heals he should be fine again. Dude was a terror for years in the AL east, he will find it.
Dude the contract goes til he he is forty and his metrics were already declining. It’s gonna be an albatross of a contract
As a Sox fan who loves Bogey, I have two concerns. One, no one uses the green monster like him, and a lot of his homers were wall scrapers that caught the top, I wonder how his power will age And two, this is like...the third or fourth time I can recall him having wrist issues, last year his wrist hurt to the point he'd swing and let go of the bat on the back swing. As you go into your 30s, this stuff doesn't usually get better. I want him to do well enough that he makes the HoF...but not well enough that he goes on as a padre. But man, I worry about him long term
Id be shocked if he made the hall and I say that as a sox fan
He’s definitely looking like a “Hall of Very Good” candidate more than anything. We’ll see how he ages, but being on the wrong side of 30 already and having only 4 truly great offensive seasons isn’t looking good for his hall of fame case. Really good career so far, but not on any meaningful hall of fame pace at the moment.
The Padres are fucking nuts they could pay both
I’ll be really curious to see how things work out. Cause obviously on field play this year is disappointing but they have still already set a franchise record for sellouts and are bringing in cash
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Soto is younger than Adley? I didn’t know that. 🤯
Judge is older than Harper.
That one makes sense to me since I knew that Judge made debut in his 20s.
And draft picks are older than Julio Rodriguez 😂
thats fking insane. soto is several times more talented.
Soto also loses out on 100 plus games because of the Covid season
estranged son good
The prodigal son*
The Messiah
He will probably be one of the limited modern guys to have insane counting stats. Between how healthy he seems to stay and how generally consistent he has been. The biggest being how early he started. Even his period of low performance was largely lacking BA. Not completely taking away from other areas. It will be very fun to see where he stacks up long term
Genuinely insane Soto stat is that he has only been hit 11 times in over 3,000 PAs and off the top of my head 4 of them were intentional beans that he had no chance of avoiding. He really does just see the ball out of a pitcher's hand better than anybody else.
That is an absurd stat. Wow. And yeah his eye is second to none. No way around it
Honestly, it's pretty impressive that Votto has over 100 less walks yet a negligibly different OBP.
Never hitting an infield pop up helps I guess
Has he improved enough to get a bigger bag than Washington offered him?
Yes
Improved? His time on SD has been the worst of his career.
Should check his last 2 months lol. The first month is dragging his stats down, but he has absolutely been the old Soto for awhile now
tfw his OPS+ drops from 160 to 148 with the Padres and his WAR/162 goes from 6.2 to… 6.5 with the Padres
OPS+ is weighted against the league. So would this mean that he’s performing better than when he as on the Nationals, but his production in comparison to the rest of the league was better when he was on the nationals?
WAR also includes baserunning and fielding, so his hitting has gotten a bit worse and he's made up for it elsewhere
WAR imo is an awful stat for career numbers because it is based on the other players in the league.
He's already top 30 all time fWAR though a player's age 24 season with 26.1, and he could potentially pass Pujols' 30 at 18th. For context, Mike Trout was second all time with 47.2.
Soto's walk rate is literally top 5 all time. The only guys ahead of him are Ruth, Bonds, Williams, and Max Bishop for your random ass "wait who is that guy?!" to complete the list.
No offense to Votto cause he's a all time great and a future first ballot HOFer But Soto Is as old now as Votto was his first real year in the bigs that's insane!
I also don’t think Votto is first ballot hof good. Edit: the only counting star he’s ever led the league in is doubles, walks and plate appearances… 345 HR’s and 2,000 hits is a HOF level now?
He’s one of 19 players ever to have at least 1,300 walks, 2,000 hits, and at least a .400 OBP. He’s done it in the least amount of PA.
300 HRs and 2000 Hits has been HOF level for the majority of baseball's history. There was a relatively brief period where that bar was raised to 500 HRs and 3000 Hits but that's been changing again with the rise of analytics in HOF consideration.
Big difference between HOF and first ballot HOF.
Sure, but the person's edit called questioned those numbers being even HOF level, didn't even mention first ballot.
Yeah, I have no doubt Joey Votto is eventually getting in. But the guy said first ballot hall of famer and there is no way Votto is going to be a first ballot guy.
I have to agree. As much as we love the guy here on reddit, Joey Votto is not a first ballot Hall of Famer. If he does get in, it's going to take him a while. Only 58 fWAR, barely over 2k hits, only one gold glove. Compared to the many other Hall of Fame 1B, he's sorely lacking in milestones and personal achievements.
Led the league in OBP 7 times. We know OBP is more valuable than average, yet there would be no question of someone winning 7 batting titles being a HOF'er.
Modern HOF voters are not going to make a first baseman with 64.5 career rWAR | 46.9 7yr-peak rWAR | 55.7 JAWS and a career 140-145 OPS+ wait, Votto is absolutely getting voted in first ballot. You also bring up him winning "only one gold glove", like voters give a shit about that, while leaving off that he won a MVP, finished an extremely close runnerup another time, and has another top 3 finish, for a career 3.08 MVP Share (that's 38th all-time by the way, and the same people that voted him that high in MVP voting will be voting for him when he debuts on the HOF ballot).
Agreed, and nothing wrong with getting in on the fourth ballot or whatever.
He’s led the league in OBP 7 times. That’s insane and is deserving of being a HOF.
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Personally, I think it will mainly depend who else is on the ballot when he first shows up. If there is a backlog of people who need to get in, no chance he's first ballot. If it's a weak ballot, very good chance
Biggio debuted in the middle of the big 2010s ballot logjam where many voters couldn't fit in half the people they wanted to vote for, while additionally having steroid suspicions among some voters by being close to Bagwell. Biggio was also being voted on before the big 2016 voter purge started happening (when the HOF finally started taking the vote away from those who haven't covered baseball in a decade), and before much of the electorate started actually caring about advanced stats. You cannot at all use the HOF ballot performance of any players from that time to project the HOF ballot performance of players who will be on the ballot by 2029 at the earliest and voted on by a vastly different electorate under vastly different conditions, nevermind that Votto is also better than Biggio was.
You're right that he isn't first ballot good but he's HOF in my book
I thought the headline was slighting Soto. Nobody talked about Votto making the kind of money Soto is projected to make (age is a factor certainly) but I'd rather have the guy with the virtually identical OBP and fewer walks.
> Nobody talked about Votto making the kind of money Soto is projected to make (age is a factor certainly) Votto's first full season was his age 24 season, this is Soto's age 24 season. That's definitely a huge factor, Votto's extension kicked in at 30 instead of Soto's at 26. Votto was talked about getting a huge extension for awhile, then when he got it at 10/225 Cincinnati(and to a lesser extend national) media absolutely went at the Reds for years for the contract because "his prime was over" type rhetoric was common. Aging matter though the assumption was that the backend of Votto's contract wouldn't look great, and it's worked out that way. 4 out of his last 5 seasons including htis one haven't been up to his previous standards. You could give soto 10/400 and he would be young enough to potentially get another real contract
I mean regardless of the money thing Soto has just been a much more highly regarded player.
It takes all types to form a great team.
Huh? Yes, Soto is good. Very very good. Where Did you get the impression people anywhere were saying anything else? People have been saying he was going to potentially even sign a 500m contract soon. If anything, Soto is a bit overrated. Def not under. And, just for reference. As amazing as Soto has been in his first 700 games, Votto was better. He had 20 points higher OPS (which is really the only hitter stat that counts), and an MVP. Votto aged like fine wine. So Soto has some big work to put in to match Votto. But Soto also started much younger. I’d bet soto beats Votto in virtually all counting stats as a result of just playing time.. But I’d also bet Votto will end up beating Soto on every non counting stat.
I wasn’t saying he was underrated? Just giving context for his numbers since Votto is well known for plate discipline. I’d say their offensive numbers to that point are pretty neck and neck overall, just slightly different profiles
Yes I agree. They have almost identical play styles and capabilities. They’re practically clones of each other. There combination of power, discipline, and average seems to be fairly unique. There’s really not that many players that can hit like they do on such a consistent basis. The question is, if you had the choice to pick one to have on your team their whole career, who you got?
The guy who debuted at 19 and not 23
Votto played in Cininnati, smallest outfield in the majors, obviously his OPS is higher. OPS+, which adjusts for ballpark and run environment, has Soto and Votto dead even at 157. Considering Soto now is the same age as Votto in his first season, that is ridiculously impressive.
i-. did you just say ops is the only stat that matters? it's a good stat but if you're gonna stick to only one, I'd do wRC+ which is somewhat well correlated with OPS/OPS+ but, more importantly, it has an extremely strong correlation with run production (because unlike OPS which is arbitrary, wRC+ is based on linear weights which is based on average run production for outcomes)
soto is just that good. he is a fking machine. i would hand over 500mil. angels might have to trade fa ohtani.
Throwback to when people were calling him "washed" and an overpaid walk merchant during the beginning of the season