Juan Soto Is Comfortable Being a Yankee. But Not That Comfortable.

Two years ago at this time, Soto was a happy kid who saw baseball as a game and imagined he’d spend his whole career playing it for the Washington Nationals. But when he and agent Scott Boras turned down a reported $440 million, 15-year extension in July 2022, the team traded its star right fielder—the best hitter this side of Ted Williams—at the deadline to the San Diego Padres. General manager Mike Rizzo had told Soto that if they couldn’t agree to terms, the team would look to get something for him rather than letting him depart in free agency. But Soto never really believed that would happen. It broke his heart to leave.

“I’m not gonna say sad,” he says. “I will say I learned something new that I didn’t know in the past.”

The trade to San Diego rattled him. Friends and family questioned his decision to turn down all that money, he told Sports Illustrated early last year, and it took him months to feel comfortable in his new home. After struggling in his first 80 games, he returned to his norms, hitting .290 and slugging .548 over the final five months of last season. He was an All-Star and a Silver Slugger, and he finished sixth in National League MVP Award voting.

“I talked to [general manager A.J. Preller], and he was telling me that he’s not gonna trade me, I’m gonna be a leader of the team, this and that,” Soto says. “I trusted him. But then a week before I got traded, he told me, ‘We’re trading you. We’re really trying to get something for you.’ I was like, ‘O.K.’ That’s when I realized things were serious. Before that, he was telling me, ‘No, no, no, we’re just listening.’”

Boras was thrilled that he ended up with the Yankees, Soto says. People around him believe he will excel on the grand stage in New York—ever the showman, he arrived at his first day of spring training in a T-shirt that read THE GENERATIONAL JUAN SOTO—and they expect him to thrive playing for a team that should contend for the World Series. For his part, Soto is just relieved that he will almost certainly make it through the whole season before he has to change addresses again.

“You gotta change that!” Torres cried.

Soto laughed. But he didn’t change it. He’s comfortable as a Yankee. But not that comfortable.