New York Yankees’ superstar outfielder Juan Soto excels at getting on base, but his decisions once there might be hurting his team.
Trailing 6-2 in Saturday’s penultimate game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Soto pulled a base hit past a diving Nick Yorke into right field. Oswaldo Cabrera scored easily, and a bobble by Joshua Palacios allowed Jasson Domínguez to advance from first to third.
The stage was set for a seventh-inning rally until Soto, who ranks 389th in MLB with a 26.7 mph average sprint speed, according to Statcast, tested Palacios’ arm and was thrown out at second by four steps, ending the inning. The Yankees went on to lose 9-4.
Getting thrown out on the bases is nothing new for Soto. As noted by The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner, Soto, who was thrown out twice on Saturday, has the second-most outs on the bases in MLB this season. Only Cincinnati Reds’ star Elly De La Cruz, who ranks third in sprint speed and is 65-for-81 in stolen base attempts in 2024, has more. In contrast, Soto has attempted to steal just 11 bases, succeeding four times.
This season, Soto has posted a career-worst -3.9 in FanGraphs’ BsR metric, the baserunning component of Wins Above Replacement (WAR), which evaluates stolen bases, caught stealings, and other baserunning plays (taking extra bases, being thrown out, etc.) as runs above or below average. This ranks him as the 11th-worst baserunner in baseball, as Gary Phillips of The New York Daily News pointed out.
Soto is not the only Yankee with rough baserunning numbers. Second baseman Gleyber Torres has a -4.5 BsR in 2024, making him statistically the sixth-worst baserunner in MLB. Representing the tying run on Tuesday, Torres was tagged out in a key rundown, killing a Yankees’ rally in a 5-3 loss.
“When it comes down to it, stuff like that can’t happen,” Yankees’ captain Aaron Judge told reporters about Torres’ blunder on Tuesday. “We can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot with mistakes like that on the basepaths. But it happened, and we’ve got to move on and get ready for tomorrow.”
Soto enters the regular season finale with a .419 on-base percentage, second only to Judge (.458) in all of baseball. In addition to their power, their ability to reach base so consistently is what makes them such a dangerous duo. However, with uncertainty in the lineup behind them, Soto cannot afford to run his team out of innings—especially in the postseason.
The Yankees clinched the No. 1 seed and home-field advantage for the playoffs after a Cleveland Guardians’ loss on Saturday night. They will face the winner of the Wild Card series between the Baltimore Orioles and either the Detroit Tigers or Kansas City Royals in the ALDS, beginning Oct. 5. Soto, set to become a free agent at season’s end, is poised for a historic payday.
