I'm in the middle on that. I think Soto is obviously someone you want on your team. Dude just gets on base. He has power to all parts of the field. Always gives a professional at bat. He has a presence that intimates at times, also can only help whoever is hitting in front of him with him sitting back there behind them and certainly has helped with Alonso's RBI numbers because he is always on base.
BUT...yeah no way he's worth that kinda money relative to his peers. He does give off a bit of a "too cool", he's fine jogging out grounders and isn't a natural leader the way Lindor is. At least it looks that way on the outside.
I'm not turning on him or the idea of him at all. It's year 1, and June certainly showed us what he is capable of doing. We need that version of him more often for sure, but he's not the problem - or not the entire problem. Lindor is my favorite Met, but he is in one major slump right now at the dish. Nimmo has been a strike out machine. The 'baby Mets' (Baty, Vientos, Alvarez and Mauricio) have been M.I.A. for the most part all year.
Hopefully last night was a spark for Alvarez and that's closer to the version of him we'll get down the stretch. He can be a spark for this team. He's the only guy that really plays with a chip on his shoulder and with fire. That kind of energy can be infectious, we need him hitting the long ball or getting clutch hits to keep that fire burning. Vientos is probably the biggest hole in what we projected our line up to be before the season. I thought going into the season the line up should be something like :
Lindor
Soto
Alonso
Vientos
Nimmo
McNeil
Alvarez
Marte/Winker
Siri/Taylor
Or maybe have Vientos 2nd and Soto 3rd. If Vientos was hitting .250-.270 and had 20+ homers right now all the sudden this line up is a lot longer. Not having a 3rd baseman who can hit is killing the line up.
Besides our issues hitting ... man this staff has hit a wall big time. If I was the coach I'd move Holmes to the pen as the long man or use him as a starter for a bull pen game. Max him out at 3 innings from now on. Montas...I mean the pen and use him in non leverage situations. Bring up the 2 rookies and see if they provide a spark. Heck at this point I'd trot Blackburn over Montas. Manaea and Senga have got to give us something better than what they have been. The pen is rock solid in my opinion, but it's getting burnt out because no one can go 6 innings, heck they cant make it 5 most of the time. It's absurd to ask your pen to go 12+ innings every 3 game series.
It'll be super interesting to see what they do this off season for starting pitching. Do they trust the young guns to fill that void? This roster is in win now mode with Lindor, McNeil and Nimmo all aging out - the pressure is on to improve the rotation.