Anthony DiComo<\/a> regarding Ohtani’s looming presence in the MVP discussion. “So he better keep doing what he’s doing, because I’m coming.”<\/p>\nSoto, 27, was excellent in 2025, hitting .263 with 43 homers, 105 RBI, 120 runs, 38 stolen bases and a .921 OPS in 160 games. It isn’t a stretch, with those numbers, to see Soto as a potential MVP in the future.<\/p>\n
The issue is that Ohtani is matching\u2014if not exceeding\u2014that level of offensive output while also impacting the game as a starting pitcher. He hit .282 with 55 homers, 102 RBI, 146 runs, 20 stolen bases and a 1.014 OPS in 2025 and also made 14 starts on the mound, finishing 1-1 with a 2.87 ERA, 1.04 WHIP and 62 strikeouts in 47 innings. And he’ll surely be utilized more as a pitcher going forward, as he was recovering last season from Tommy John surgery. <\/p>\n
In other words, if Ohtani plays to his absolute ceiling, it’s pretty unlikely anybody is going to top him in the MVP conversation. But one way or another for Soto, it comes down to improvement. <\/p>\n
“I feel like everybody tries to do better than what they did before,” he said. “I would definitely love to be better around the bases and better around the outfield. Even hitting, I try to keep my hitting increased. Thank god I’ve been doing well the past couple seasons. I’ve been putting numbers up there, career highs and stuff like that. So I just want to keep doing the same thing. I try to be better year after year.”<\/p>\n
The Mets are hoping for improvement after a disappointing 2025 and transformational offseason as well. Soto putting up an MVP-worthy performance would certainly help. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto is hoping to win his first MVP award. To do so, he’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":589600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[5,101,4,1690,61,2548,4203],"class_list":{"0":"post-589599","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-mlb","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-mets","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkmets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116124081470086200","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589599","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=589599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/589600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}