“How sweet it is, 1 of 5” exclaimed Vintage Breaks’ J5, right after he exclaimed some other things we cannot repeat here. It was all for good reason, however, because VB pulled a Big Time hit in their 2018 Topps Brooklyn Baseball Break. A Juan Soto ROOKIE Auto numbered to 5 was on the checklist for this 2018 set, and this card certainly checked out. It was a Personal Break for David T and he knocked it out of the park with this classic tale of Boy wants Card, Boy gets Card, The Hobby lives happily ever after. SPOILER ALERT: Soto had a sharp signature even in his rookie year! This hit is truly one of Brooklyn’s finest.
Now with the Padres, it wasn’t long ago that we remember Juan Soto as a shining star in The District. Soto signed with the Nationals as an international free agent in July of 2015. He made his professional debut in 2016 in the rookie-level Gulf Coast League, and was named the GCL MVP after hitting .368, with 5 homers and 32 RBIs. He was soon promoted to the Class A-Short Season New York-Penn League, then the Class A South Atlantic League, and crushed it in both.
Soto was growing in the farm system, but unfortunately inured his ankle sliding into home during a game in 2017. At the time of his injury, he was batting .360 with 3 home runs in 23 games with the Hagerstown Suns of the South Atlantic League. In July 2017, MLB Pipeline ranked him the Nationals’ 2nd-best prospect, and the 42nd-best among all prospects.
He would enter 2018 as one of the minor leagues’ top prospects, realizing his dream as a kid in the Dominican Republic to play in the big leagues. That season, he returned to the Suns for a bit, and crushed it, until he got The Call.
On May 20, 2018, the Washington Nationals called Soto up to The Show for the first time, in order to reinforce their outfield after an injury to 2nd baseman/outfielder Howie Kendrick. Upon debuting, he became the youngest player in the major leagues at 19 years, 207 days, and the first player born in 1998 to appear in a major league ball game.
His first major-league start was the following day, playing left field in a game against the Padres at home in Nationals Park, and on the first pitch of his first plate appearance of the game, got his first major-league hit! It happened to be a 422 ft opposite-field 3-run homer off of Robbie Erlin, and he’s been swinging for the fences ever since.
Winning a championship with the Nationals in 2019, being in contention for a batting title in the shortened 2020 season, having his first All-Star season and being an NL MVP runner-up in 2021, among many other accomplishments. On April 12, 2022 Soto hit his 100th career home run, making him the youngest player to reach that milestone in Nationals history and the eighth-youngest player to reach the milestone in MLB history.
East or West coast, Soto will continue sending baseballs skyward, and signing mind-boggling contracts that even make Scott Boras blush, if you can believe it.
