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PHILADELPHIA – Mets slugger Juan Soto muttered and looked away in disgust when he hit a fly ball to right field in the third inning of Thursday night’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies. He had just missed Aaron Nola’s middle-middle sinker, or so he thought. When a hearty wind nudged the ball over the right field fence, he could not help but smile. Somehow, he had hit it just enough.
As lucky as that gust might have been, Soto does not leave much to chance when it comes to his swings. He is as attuned with his swing as he is with the strike zone, which is why, when he wanted to feel a little quicker to the ball with two strikes in late May, he started experimenting with a small change to his bat.
Against the Marlins in Miami last month, Soto tested a bat with a thicker, more prominent nob that pushed his bottom hand up from the bottom more than a traditional one. The result is a more evenly weighted bat with the mass spread more from top to bottom, as opposed to the end-weighted one Soto used early in the season.
“I feel like I can be quicker, especially on two strikes,” Soto said, punching his left hand in the air to an imagined inside pitch, pitch up the middle, then pitch away.
Even though he feels he can swing it more quickly, Soto said this new bat is actually “a tick heavier” than his previous model; though somewhat counterintuitive, players sometimes find end-weighted bats actually drag more than more evenly weighted bats, in which more of the mass is closer to their hands.
When he first started using the bat regularly on May 22, Soto was hitting .301 with a .965 OPS. At the end of Thursday’s two-homer night, he is hitting .300 with a .980 OPS and has seven home runs in those 22 games after hitting 10 in his first 36.
Who knows whether an end-weighted bat would have given Soto’s windswept homer a few more feet of wiggle room Thursday. With the fourth-highest OPS in baseball, after his two-homer performance, Soto seems to be calibrated just fine.
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As lucky as that gust might have been, Soto does not leave much to chance when it comes to his swings. He is as attuned with his swing as he is with the strike zone, which is why, when he wanted to feel a little quicker to the ball with two strikes in late May, he started experimenting with a small change to his bat.
Against the Marlins in Miami last month, Soto tested a bat with a thicker, more prominent nob that pushed his bottom hand up from the bottom more than a traditional one. The result is a more evenly weighted bat with the mass spread more from top to bottom, as opposed to the end-weighted one Soto used early in the season.
“I feel like I can be quicker, especially on two strikes,” Soto said, punching his left hand in the air to an imagined inside pitch, pitch up the middle, then pitch away.
Even though he feels he can swing it more quickly, Soto said this new bat is actually “a tick heavier” than his previous model; though somewhat counterintuitive, players sometimes find end-weighted bats actually drag more than more evenly weighted bats, in which more of the mass is closer to their hands.
When he first started using the bat regularly on May 22, Soto was hitting .301 with a .965 OPS. At the end of Thursday’s two-homer night, he is hitting .300 with a .980 OPS and has seven home runs in those 22 games after hitting 10 in his first 36.
Who knows whether an end-weighted bat would have given Soto’s windswept homer a few more feet of wiggle room Thursday. With the fourth-highest OPS in baseball, after his two-homer performance, Soto seems to be calibrated just fine.
Continue reading...
