TBNL: Juan Soto's "slow" start, Jeopardy!, book club

Juan Soto is roughly one-third of the way through his first season with the New York Mets. If the national media is to be believed, Soto has struggled mightily to adjust to his new team and those stresses are impacting his performance on the field.

Through 53 games and 238 plate appearances, Soto is hitting .233/.361/.409 with eight home runs and 25 RBI. While the slash line might be below his usual standards, Soto still has a 122 OPS+ (i.e. 22% better than league average). His 41 walks put him third in the majors (behind only Marcell Ozuna and Rafael Devers).

A “struggling” Soto is still a better hitter than much of the league.

He’s a generational talent, without question, but Soto has also been traded twice already in his career. Amazingly, both trades continue to be working out for the teams that dealt him away.

Washington was the first to move Soto, having tried and failed to re-sign him to an extension that would keep him in a Nationals uniform for his entire career. With two seasons remaining under contract, the Nationals dealt him at the 2022 trade deadline to San Diego for a return focused on five prospects: Mackenzie Gore, Jarlin Susana, CJ Abrams, James Wood, and Robert Hassell III.

Four of the five are already making an impact in Washington.

Wood has blossomed into one of the game’s top young stars. Abrams nearly won the NL batting title last season. Gore is leading the majors in strikeouts (93 through 62.1 IP). Hassell made an immediate impact when called up last week to replace the injured Dylan Crews, picking up two hits and stealing a base before scoring the game-winning run in extra innings in his debut.

Only Susana has yet to reach The Show, but he, too, has only continued to get rave reviews from scouts around the game (he ranks second on most Nationals top prospects lists). He’s been on the Double-A injured list since early May with a sprained UCL.

While the quintet gives Nationals fans reason for optimism, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal pointed out in Tuesday’s edition of The Windup that Washington has struggled to develop their own talent in recent years. Since winning the 2009 World Series, Washington ranks third in the major leagues in losses: one behind the Pirates and 14 fewer than the Rockies.

The Nats aren’t spending to build around this core, but also aren’t developing more players to supplement them. It’s not a winning formula. (Sorry, Carol.)

San Diego, meanwhile, gave up this grand package to acquire Soto only to trade him a season and a half later after failing in their own attempts to re-sign him (Padres owner Peter Seidler reportedly was close to an agreement before his passing; the club then shifted gears). The Padres’ return has also been strong, though it’s much more top-heavy and less impactful overall than what the Nats received.

Michael King and Dylan Cease (who the Padres acquired from the White Sox using Drew Thorpe) front the Padres’ rotation (though both will reach free agency after the season and it seems unlikely they’ll both be retained). Randy Vázquez and Jhony Brito have spent most of their time at Triple-A, but both have seen time in the San Diego bullpen. Kyle Higashioka’s lone season with the Padres was strong enough to earn him a $14M deal in free agency the next offseason.

Soto’s Mets career will be fine. He’ll overcome the “struggles” he’s faced at the plate early on. Washington and San Diego may not regret trading him away, but both teams would surely be in different positions if they hadn’t.

MiLB on “Jeopardy!”

Almost 9,300 episodes of the legendary game show “Jeopardy!” have aired since the show first debuted in 1984. According to IMDB, only four shows have ever had more episodes during their lifetime (three of them are still running).

Minor league baseball — mascots, geographic locations — has been a category at times, but it’s rare when a specific minor league player is mentioned as part of an answer. Monday night’s episode was just the sixth time in the show’s long history.

Longtime Bulls legend (and brief minor league baseball player) Michael Jordan has been mentioned several times on the show. The other instances of a minor league baseball player being mentioned (thanks to Reddit):

• THE MINOR LEAGUES $200: Mike Hessman, not Crash Davis, holds the minor league baseball record for these — 433 in 20 seasons. (Answer: Home runs.)

• AFTER WINNING THE HEISMAN $200: 10 years after bagging a trophy, this ex-Florida QB hit .231 with 5 home runs for a Mets minor league team in 2017. (Answer: Tim Tebow.)

• POP CULTURE $500: This Susan Sarandon baseball film was directed by Ron Shelton, a former minor league player. (Answer: Bull Durham.)

• MINOR LEAGUE BASEBALL $200: In 1954, Joe Bauman outdid Babe Ruth with 72 of these in the Longhorn League; he never reached the majors. (Answer: Home runs.)

• POLITICIANS $200: In the 1950s, this current New York governor played minor league baseball with the Brunswick Pirates. (Answer: Mario Cuomo.)

Elsewhere, around the sport …

• Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman missed some time last season after his 3-year-old son, Max, was diagnosed with a rare neurological condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome (the body’s immune system attacks its nerves). The Freemans are reportedly donating $1M to the Children’s Hospital of Orange County.

• Jacob deGrom has made 229 starts and thrown more than 1,400 innings over a 12-year career. He’s struck out more than 1,700 hitters for a career K/9 of 10.9. On Monday against the Blue Jays, deGrom went 5.1 IP while allowing a pair of runs but failed to strike out a single batter for the first time in his career.

• An informal book club has formed within the Nationals’ clubhouse, according to The Washington Post’s Andrew Golden. The group — consisting of Trevor Williams, Mackenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, Michael Soroka, Kyle Finnegan, Alex Call, Josh Bell, and Nathaniel Lowe — has been focused on J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, having just finished “The Hobbit” and now working on “The Fellowship of the Ring.” See, baseball players can be nerds, too.

More writing

• Chicago, Baltimore, and Toronto are under consideration for the next three All-Star Games

• Top Royals prospect Jac Caglianone has homered in four straight games