The gardener Juan Soto of the Washington Nationals he continues to speak with the wonderful discipline he has in the batter’s box; which is well above the location that pitchers can have in the majors.
Although Soto is not hitting 400, his hitting percentage is above the aforementioned digits thanks to the walks he gets game after game and the discipline he has every time he takes a swing.
Soto in the past two seasons has allowed 26 intentional walks. That’s more than the 23 walks Javier Báez has achieved between 2020 and 2021 in the Major Leagues.
A few days ago Juan Soto said that he does not despair with those pitchers who do not want to strike him with fear of being harmed, he is aware of the situation and goes out to play when they want.
“Whenever they want to play, I play. When they don’t want to play, I just go for a walk ”. It should be noted that those 105 walks that Soto leads with one more month remaining in the regular season, help him to have a percentage to pack at 442. During his 3 years in the MLB his OBP has always been above 400.
Even the discipline of Juan Soto It has led a lot of people to open up curious questions that may seem a bit rushed for his time in the majors. One of the most mentioned is if he would be the Latino with the most walks in the history of the game over Venezuelan Bobby Abreu.
Why did you think that Juan Soto could be the next Latino with the most walks in the MLB?
In Bobby Abreu’s first 377 games in the MLB he walked 214, 22 of them intentionally. While Juan Soto in his first 313 games adds 228 walks and 25 of them were intentional. Soto has 14 more walks than Abreu in 64 fewer games in the majors. (Comparing the first three seasons of each)
Still if we add one more season to Abreu and add the 2021 season to Soto, the Dominican is leading by 11 walks in 70 fewer games.
What is the factor that drives Soto even more?
In 2020 the Dominican was the leader in intentional walks with a total of 12, not all managers want to throw him at key moments, that’s why they send their pitchers to pass it.
In the current season, this 2021 he is heading to lead the league in that department, at the moment he has 97 and is heading to take 100 walks for the second time in his career.