**The Perennial JUAN SOTO Thread!**

[Mymoneypls]

Just an amazing card. I’m not sure I would ever part with that.


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[MogulSkier39]

As a Red Sox and Devers fan that also collects Soto, curious to get this group’s take: given Soto’s start and the fact Devers appears to be back to 2019 form, do Soto collectors still consider Devers in far less favor than Soto, or are folks taking notice?

[ThoseBackPages]

i dont see Devers ever turning the hobby corner

[HarryLime]

What does Devers have to do with Soto?

Arthur

[NCWolf]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

i dont see Devers ever turning the hobby corner

He can certainly turn the corner.. We might be seeing it right now, who knows...

But to compare him to Soto at this stage isn't realistic. Devers is a great player, but he needs to come a long way on the field too. He's consistently one of the top 5 3B leaders in errors - often top 2/3

Player A:
AVG - .293
OBP - .413
OPS - .956
BB - 250 SO - 276
HR - 73

Player B:
AVG - .278
OBP - .334
OPS - .840
BB - 136 SO - 416
HR - 86

Devers might be Freddie 2.0 where it takes many years of good performances for the hobby to catch up.

[Geoff G]

Originally Posted by REGGIE206

Me too, Geoff!

Boom!! was waiting for you to drop that HOH auto regg!! So nice


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[PFF100]

Originally Posted by BosPats1980

Aaaaaannnnddddd REGGIE just closed this thread again

Reggie always killing the game with his collection!


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[Snakeonia]

Originally Posted by MogulSkier39

As a Red Sox and Devers fan that also collects Soto, curious to get this group’s take: given Soto’s start and the fact Devers appears to be back to 2019 form, do Soto collectors still consider Devers in far less favor than Soto, or are folks taking notice?

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[SupermanBrandon]

Incredible card Reg but Soto’s career is over. Devers is KING now!


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[BBases31]

A fair question to ask: Is now a good time buy Soto? There's stuff of his I wanted to stock up on but I'm not touching anything until the offseason for a few reasons.

First, let's get out of the way that his current poor showing is almost entirely due to batted ball luck. He ranks 11th in baseball in xwOBA. His offensive numbers will get significantly better from here. He has a career high in max EV by 2 MPH, but his average EV is down slightly. And while defensive numbers are wildly variable in a 2 month window, his Outs Above Average is 86% percentile right now.

The question is, how will those numbers look by the end of the season? He has a 122 wRC+ and with his expected numbers it probably should be about a 150. Would that be enough to justify buying at current prices? To me, no. But let's say he starts tearing the cover off the ball like last year and puts up a 170-180 the rest of the season and therefore finishes around 150-160 wRC+. He'll still be far out of the MVP conversation at that point.

Will his prices be more expensive than now if he finishes out the season with a .300 avg, 25 HRs, and a 160 wRC+, no playoffs, and no 1st place MVP votes? I think the answer is probably no, but maybe a very light increase

Best case scenario from here to the end of the season, is a small bump in prices if he comes close to his performance last year and carries that entirely for the next 4 months. The chance of an explosion in price is basically nil.

Combine all of this with the potential strike or lockout and Soto seems like a bad buy proposition right now. You don't need a strike to depress the market. A potential labor stoppage is going to be dominating all baseball news until they come to an agreement and it's going to sap the entire market. There's basically no hope of an early agreement. If they get one, it will be right up against the deadline(sometime in late january likely) which means months of scary labor stoppage headlines.

I love Soto. If you buy now and throw his stuff in your closet for 3 years, you can't go wrong. But, there will be better opportunities this year to buy and you won't be missing any boat by waiting

[soicanbefree]

I own some decent Soto cards and he's a better player on a better trajectory then Devers.

That said Devers is a far better hobby value with better upside given their relative price to talent levels.

Stick to Soto, Acuna, Ohtani I don't care but they are all priced for perfection at the moment.

Still a huge all time fan of 2018 rookie class. Hopefully it goes down as the GOAT w/2018 update wax being the GOAT modern product.

[HarryLime]

Originally Posted by BBases31

A fair question to ask: Is now a good time buy Soto? There's stuff of his I wanted to stock up on but I'm not touching anything until the offseason for a few reasons.

First, let's get out of the way that his current poor showing is almost entirely due to batted ball luck. He ranks 11th in baseball in xwOBA. His offensive numbers will get significantly better from here. He has a career high in max EV by 2 MPH, but his average EV is down slightly. And while defensive numbers are wildly variable in a 2 month window, his Outs Above Average is 86% percentile right now.

The question is, how will those numbers look by the end of the season? He has a 122 wRC+ and with his expected numbers it probably should be about a 150. Would that be enough to justify buying at current prices? To me, no. But let's say he starts tearing the cover off the ball like last year and puts up a 170-180 the rest of the season and therefore finishes around 150-160 wRC+. He'll still be far out of the MVP conversation at that point.

Will his prices be more expensive than now if he finishes out the season with a .300 avg, 25 HRs, and a 160 wRC+, no playoffs, and no 1st place MVP votes? I think the answer is probably no, but maybe a very light increase

Best case scenario from here to the end of the season, is a small bump in prices if he comes close to his performance last year and carries that entirely for the next 4 months. The chance of an explosion in price is basically nil.

Combine all of this with the potential strike or lockout and Soto seems like a bad buy proposition right now. You don't need a strike to depress the market. A potential labor stoppage is going to be dominating all baseball news until they come to an agreement and it's going to sap the entire market. There's basically no hope of an early agreement. If they get one, it will be right up against the deadline(sometime in late january likely) which means months of scary labor stoppage headlines.

I love Soto. If you buy now and throw his stuff in your closet for 3 years, you can't go wrong. But, there will be better opportunities this year to buy and you won't be missing any boat by waiting

I think in this, as in all things, context is king.

If you're talking about US300s and HMT55s then I can see your case. Unfortunately, Soto is one of those players that already has a large amount of rabid collectors. There are collectors who own everything Soto (like Reggie, who has a frozen piece of cake from Soto's fifth birthday party) to collectors who buy up every copy of certain cards no matter how many they have.

So there's a LOT of rare stuff out there that you have to gauge how often (or in some cases, if ever) the card will surface for sale and your chances of winning it later versus trying to win it now.

I think if it's a card you want and it's serial-numbered below /499, I'd take a stab at it no matter when it gets listed.

Arthur

[Snakeonia]

Originally Posted by BBases31

A fair question to ask: Is now a good time buy Soto? There's stuff of his I wanted to stock up on but I'm not touching anything until the offseason for a few reasons.

First, let's get out of the way that his current poor showing is almost entirely due to batted ball luck. He ranks 11th in baseball in xwOBA. His offensive numbers will get significantly better from here. He has a career high in max EV by 2 MPH, but his average EV is down slightly. And while defensive numbers are wildly variable in a 2 month window, his Outs Above Average is 86% percentile right now.

The question is, how will those numbers look by the end of the season? He has a 122 wRC+ and with his expected numbers it probably should be about a 150. Would that be enough to justify buying at current prices? To me, no. But let's say he starts tearing the cover off the ball like last year and puts up a 170-180 the rest of the season and therefore finishes around 150-160 wRC+. He'll still be far out of the MVP conversation at that point.

Will his prices be more expensive than now if he finishes out the season with a .300 avg, 25 HRs, and a 160 wRC+, no playoffs, and no 1st place MVP votes? I think the answer is probably no, but maybe a very light increase

Best case scenario from here to the end of the season, is a small bump in prices if he comes close to his performance last year and carries that entirely for the next 4 months. The chance of an explosion in price is basically nil.

Combine all of this with the potential strike or lockout and Soto seems like a bad buy proposition right now. You don't need a strike to depress the market. A potential labor stoppage is going to be dominating all baseball news until they come to an agreement and it's going to sap the entire market. There's basically no hope of an early agreement. If they get one, it will be right up against the deadline(sometime in late january likely) which means months of scary labor stoppage headlines.

I love Soto. If you buy now and throw his stuff in your closet for 3 years, you can't go wrong. But, there will be better opportunities this year to buy and you won't be missing any boat by waiting

Extrapolation from 1/4 of a season is a fool’s errand.




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[Snakeonia]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

I think in this, as in all things, context is king.

If you're talking about US300s and HMT55s then I can see your case. Unfortunately, Soto is one of those players that already has a large amount of rabid collectors. There are collectors who own everything Soto (like Reggie, who has a frozen piece of cake from Soto's fifth birthday party) to collectors who buy up every copy of certain cards no matter how many they have.

So there's a LOT of rare stuff out there that you have to gauge how often (or in some cases, if ever) the card will surface for sale and your chances of winning it later versus trying to win it now.

I think if it's a card you want and it's serial-numbered below /499, I'd take a stab at it no matter when it gets listed.

Arthur

I gotta see this birthday cake.



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[djdevon]

Originally Posted by BBases31

A fair question to ask: Is now a good time buy Soto? There's stuff of his I wanted to stock up on but I'm not touching anything until the offseason for a few reasons.

First, let's get out of the way that his current poor showing is almost entirely due to batted ball luck. He ranks 11th in baseball in xwOBA. His offensive numbers will get significantly better from here. He has a career high in max EV by 2 MPH, but his average EV is down slightly. And while defensive numbers are wildly variable in a 2 month window, his Outs Above Average is 86% percentile right now.

The question is, how will those numbers look by the end of the season? He has a 122 wRC+ and with his expected numbers it probably should be about a 150. Would that be enough to justify buying at current prices? To me, no. But let's say he starts tearing the cover off the ball like last year and puts up a 170-180 the rest of the season and therefore finishes around 150-160 wRC+. He'll still be far out of the MVP conversation at that point.

Will his prices be more expensive than now if he finishes out the season with a .300 avg, 25 HRs, and a 160 wRC+, no playoffs, and no 1st place MVP votes? I think the answer is probably no, but maybe a very light increase

Best case scenario from here to the end of the season, is a small bump in prices if he comes close to his performance last year and carries that entirely for the next 4 months. The chance of an explosion in price is basically nil.

Combine all of this with the potential strike or lockout and Soto seems like a bad buy proposition right now. You don't need a strike to depress the market. A potential labor stoppage is going to be dominating all baseball news until they come to an agreement and it's going to sap the entire market. There's basically no hope of an early agreement. If they get one, it will be right up against the deadline(sometime in late january likely) which means months of scary labor stoppage headlines.

I love Soto. If you buy now and throw his stuff in your closet for 3 years, you can't go wrong. But, there will be better opportunities this year to buy and you won't be missing any boat by waiting

I think you've answered your own question. Why buy now and hold him for 3 years? Opportunity cost. Buy Vlad or Shohei or Acuna. Guys with potential right now. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Soto is Kevin Maas.

[LVDan]

baseball is hard
Soto is really good at it

[HarryLime]

Originally Posted by djdevon

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Soto is Kevin Maas.

This is outstanding. I salute you, sir.

Arthur

[Supercomputers]

Buying every High end Soto you have for under Market of coarse send them my way.
LMAO

[REGGIE206]

Originally Posted by HarryLime

I think in this, as in all things, context is king.

If you're talking about US300s and HMT55s then I can see your case. Unfortunately, Soto is one of those players that already has a large amount of rabid collectors. There are collectors who own everything Soto (like Reggie, who has a frozen piece of cake from Soto's fifth birthday party) to collectors who buy up every copy of certain cards no matter how many they have.

So there's a LOT of rare stuff out there that you have to gauge how often (or in some cases, if ever) the card will surface for sale and your chances of winning it later versus trying to win it now.

I think if it's a card you want and it's serial-numbered below /499, I'd take a stab at it no matter when it gets listed.

Arthur

Originally Posted by Snakeonia

I gotta see this birthday cake.

I literally almost spit my coffee out laughing when I read this!

[Snakeonia]

Originally Posted by djdevon

I think you've answered your own question. Why buy now and hold him for 3 years? Opportunity cost. Buy Vlad or Shohei or Acuna. Guys with potential right now. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Soto is Kevin Maas.

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[brewtown107]

Really happy with my latest Soto pickup!

[djdevon]

Originally Posted by Snakeonia

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Am I insane? Their stats look very similar so far.

[JohnnyHatesJazz]

it's still early. i'd be concerned though if the doubles and home runs aren't coming by mid june.

[JohnnyHatesJazz]

Originally Posted by Snakeonia

I gotta see this birthday cake.



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straight outta 1990.

[REGGIE206]

Originally Posted by djdevon

Am I insane? Their stats look very similar so far.

1st year & 2nd year

SOTO

2018: 77 runs | 121 hits | 22 HR | 70 RBI | 5 SB | .292 BA | .406 OBP | .517 SLG | .923 OPS

2019: 110 runs | 153 hits | 34 HR | 110 RBI | 12 SB | .282 BA | .401 OBP | .548 SLG | .949 OPS

MAAS

1990: 42 runs | 64 hits | 21 HR | 41 RBI | 1 SB | .252 BA | .367 OBP | .535 SLG | .902 OPS

1991: 69 runs | 110 hits | 23 HR | 63 RBI | 5 SB | .220 BA | .333 OBP | .390 SLG | .723 OPS

Here are their stats in their first & second years. Please explain to me how their stats look similar?

I put the only stat Maas had better than Soto in the same stage of their career. I’d highlight Soto’s, but that would take too much time.