{"id":565820,"date":"2026-02-11T08:12:49","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/565820\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T08:12:49","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T08:12:49","slug":"mets-news-juan-soto-moving-to-left-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/565820\/","title":{"rendered":"Mets News: Juan Soto moving to left field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While speaking to the press today, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns announced that the team is moving Juan Soto to left field for the 2026 season. The move doesn\u2019t come as a huge surprise, as the 27-year-old was the worst defender in the big leagues in right field last year according <a href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/leaderboard\/outs_above_average?type=Fielder&amp;startYear=2025&amp;endYear=2025&amp;split=yes&amp;team=&amp;range=year&amp;min=q&amp;pos=9&amp;roles=&amp;viz=hide\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">by OAA at Statcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While Soto has spent the majority of his major league career in right field, he\u2019s no stranger to playing left. He\u2019s logged 4,000.2 innings at the position over 460 appearances, but it\u2019s worth noting that his most recent significant playing time there came in 2023 with the Padres. Soto played just six games in left for the Yankees in 2024 and didn\u2019t play any position other than right field in his first season with the Mets last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The Mets\u2019 decision to move Soto is very likely motivated primarily by the team\u2019s desire to maximize the value that they\u2019re getting out of him as opposed to moving him specifically for their other outfield options. Luis Robert Jr. has played center field exclusively in his major league career, and he\u2019s one of the better defenders in the sport at the position. And Carson Benge, who now figures to be the team\u2019s right fielder on Opening Day barring a horrendous showing in spring training, has spent some time in both corners while primarily playing center in his minor league career. His <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazinavenue.com\/new-york-mets-prospects-minor-leagues\/89754\/top-25-mets-prospects-for-2026-of-carson-benge-2\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">arm rates well<\/a>, which would be more beneficial in right than in left.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">What do you think of the Mets\u2019 decision to move Soto to left? Will it help him be a better defender? Jump into the comments to chat about it, or register for an account if you\u2019re new to the comment section!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While speaking to the press today, Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns announced that the team is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,101,4964,4,1690,61,2548,4203],"class_list":{"0":"post-565820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-mets","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mets","10":"tag-mets-news","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-mets","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkmets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116050998258684140","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}