Juan Soto has been an MVP frontrunner throughout his 2024 MLB season with the New York Yankees, and an MLB legend recently pinpointed one aspect of his game that resembles one of the greatest sluggers of all time.
Soto is rounding out the current campaign in a stellar fashion. The Dominican superstar is slashing .304/.429/.589 with a mind-boggling 1.018 OPS to his name. Having smacked 30 home runs into the stands this year, Soto has proven yet again that he is among the game’s best hitters, both for power and for average. This top-shelf level of play caught the attention of former Philadelphia Phillies legend Jimmy Rollins, who couldn’t help but put the seven-year veteran in the same breath as former San Francisco Giants superstar Barry Bonds.
Jimmy Rollins compares Yankees’ Juan Soto’s consistency at the plate to Barry Bonds
On a recent episode of “The 6-1-1 Podcast,” Rollins shared that Soto’s ability to limit the amount of times he swings and misses is what reminds him of Bonds the most (h/t Sportskeeda’s Raghav Mehta):
“If I could come back today as a hitter, I think I would want to be Juan Soto. He doesn’t miss. He’s the closest thing I’ve seen to Barry Bonds,” Rollins raved.
“He can hit you out anywhere. He doesn’t swing and miss. When he does swing, he rarely misses. I remember Barry would go through a season where he’d go 20 straight games before he swung and missed, but when he swung his decision was seemingly right. I see that in Juan Soto.”
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Is Soto anything like Bonds at the plate?
Rollins came from a standpoint of consistency more than anything. Bonds was heralded for his efficiency just as much as his power over the course of his 22-year career in the Major Leagues. The MLB’s all-time home runs leader hung his cleats up with a .298 career batting average. Currently, Soto is close to that with a .287 career average.
Bonds was also the most feared hitter in baseball throughout stretches of his career. He led the big leagues in walks 12 times, showing just how much of a problem he was for opposing pitchers to deal with. Soto has already outpaced his contemporaries in that category in three consecutive seasons from 2021-2023 and is three walks off of the league lead this season. That parallel screams Bonds. It also shows that Soto is respected when he comes up to bat.
It’s one thing to consistently generate walks. It’s another thing to keep up that reputation with connectivity on pitches, and an entirely different thing to translate that into wins. Soto’s stuff looks like something off of a video game. The 6-2, 224-pound talent ranks in the 99th percentile or better in most of his batting peripherals, including chase percentage (17.8 percent). The four-time Silver Slugger Award winner also owns a 15.5 percent strikeout percentage, placing him in the 84th percentile, and whiffs only 21.8 percent of the time. Thus, Soto exhibits discipline against a variety of pitches and knows what to swing at more often than not.
Further, the former 2019 World Series Champion has been exceptional in the wins above replacement department for his career. He led the National League with a 7.1 WAR in 2021 and his 6.9 WAR this year is not too far off of the top dogs in the American League. Bonds took home the crown in that category a whopping 11 times in his professional tenure. Soto may have some legwork to do to rival that otherworldly total, but he’s been impactful in every team he’s been on thus far and his bat can help add another World Series crown to his name this fall.
All in all, Soto is Uber-efficient. He is scary-powerful. The Yankees’ prized outfielder might not have 73 home runs in his future (or maybe he does) like Bonds hit in 2001, but his track record proves Rollins’s assessment. He delivers at the plate, and when he swings his bat, he’s not hitting air, but rather enough baseballs to have his name mentioned next to one of the best to ever do it.
