Juan Soto mentors Mets' younger talent his own way, taking pieces of his past

The past informs the present, for good or for ill, and Juan Soto knows this, despite working a job that hyperfocuses on the present.

Which is why he ticks off the names efficiently, as if having anticipated the question all along: Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Michael A. Taylor, Adam Eaton, Anthony Rendon, Max Scherzer, Victor Robles. There are others, he clarifies, but you get the gist.

“Every single guy in that locker room, they really had respect for me, and I had a lot of respect for them,” he told Newsday two weekends ago in San Diego. “They made me feel like who I am.”

This isn’t a mental mausoleum of the 2018 and 2019 Nationals — the latter team defying odds and doomsday sports analysts to a win a World Series after cratering to 12 games under .500 in late May. No, Soto makes it clear that those two seasons — the first being his rookie year — are stitched into the fabric of who he is right now, and though he doesn’t say it, who he is right now is a beacon on a Mets team that occasionally looks to be stumbling in the dark.

He’s sidestepped being definitively labeled the team leader, though he’ll go as far to say that he tries to lead by example. When he was recently asked about mentoring the Mets’ rookie outfielders, he said, “I don’t try to be a mentor — I try to be one of them.”

And that is because Soto was, once, one of them. And to him, he still is.

You see influence of that philosophy everywhere. Soto, Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing have become an exuberant trio in the Citi Field outfield, holding hands and gloves and bumping hips after a Mets win. When Benge hit a walkoff against the Yankees in May — a fielder’s choice with runners on first and third that ended with Benge far overrunning the bag — Soto was only a few feet behind him, enveloping him in a bear hug. It took about two seconds for anyone else to even catch up.

On Opening Day, Soto and Benge perfected their individualized handshakes. Now Ewing has one, too. So does MJ Melendez, and Christian Scott, and Freddy Peralta…and, well, you get the idea. There are a lot of Soto Shakes, Benge said, and everyone gets their own.

“Being able to get to know him over the past few months, you know, his goofy side has kind of come out," Benge said. "He knows when to be serious, but he knows when to relax and have a good time.”

Here’s the thing about the Mets so far: A lack of seriousness isn’t the issue. After a harrowing April that nearly dashed any reason for hope, they’re in perpetual survival mode. Every game feels like life or death, because when it comes to the fate of this season, any game might be. It’s hard to win when you’re playing not to lose, but their effervescent outfield provides a spark of levity that doesn’t exist if its elder statesman doesn’t foster it.

“Juan has been great with me,” Ewing told Newsday. “He's made me feel that super welcome, and really loved. Just from the moment I got here, sharing the outfield with him is awesome. We do a lot of communicating and we have a great relationship.”

Soto knows he’s Soto. He knows that there might be an intimidation factor. And he also knows exactly what it’s like to be a kid saddled with onerous expectations — even before your first major league at bat. It can be isolating at the bottom — the player just starting up, praying he can be one of the outliers who survive to play this game for a living. It can be equally isolating at the top, where the heft of your contract means that maybe even teammates view you in a different light.

But how you relate to people matters, and it has the power to shift narratives. A lot of it “depends on how you treat them and how you make them feel when they get here,” Soto said. “If you make them feel intimidated, they feel intimidated. [Or are you going to make them] feel comfortable, feel home.”

He reflected on his own introduction to the majors.

“The biggest thing was how they made me feel and how easy [they made it]. I texted Bryce Harper when I came into the league and he was one of the guys who was telling me to just be myself, to not worry about anything else, try to enjoy the moment and play hard…That’s one of the things I try to help the young kids [with]. Just have fun and don’t worry about anything else because [what’s] going to happen is going to happen regardless.”

Soto made quick work of that, too. He met Benge on his first day at spring training in mid February. By April 1, manager Carlos Mendoza couldn’t keep back a smile when he was asked about their relationship.

“It’s pretty cool to see — from the very beginning of spring training [there was] that connection,” he said. “Juan is taking that leadership role, especially with some of those guys who are with him all the time — Carson being one of those. I think it's really good to see Juan [lead] in his own way. He's a guy who's not going to show the whole world what he's doing. He likes to do things behind the scenes, but we see it.”

And slowly, so is everyone else. Leadership doesn’t always look like stern speeches and elaborate team meetings. Sometimes it looks like two guys essentially playing patty cake in the dugout — with one of those guys making less than $1 million this year and the other with a contract worth three quarters of a billion dollars.

Both Ewing and Benge were asked about his mentorship, and both had similar perspectives.

“It's more like a friend relationship,” Benge said. “Obviously I still learn a lot from him, so being able to have a tight relationship with him while also being able to pick up on different things that he does, or ask him about anything, is pretty neat.”

Said Ewing: “When I'm around him, he kind of just feels like my friend, but he's a mentor to me — not in a vocal way, but I like to watch how he goes about everything that he does.”

It’s so easy to forget that Soto is just 27, and that a friendship makes so much sense. With Benge being 23, Soto is closer in age to him than he is to Francisco Lindor (32). Ewing is 21, making the age gap between him and Soto shorter than the one between Soto and Marcus Semien (35).

“I really enjoy being around them,” Soto said. “They definitely bring the energy to even the veteran players, and to guys like me, to be more motivated, to push it, to be playing better, to be at their level. Their level of game is really high, and I feel like we have to catch up to them.”

It’s not every day that a player coming off back-to-back seasons as a top-three MVP candidate says he wants to play up to a rookie’s level. Certainly not one currently leading the team in almost every major offensive category. But it does speak to Soto’s dedication to equality — anyone can learn from anyone else. Anyone can lead. Anyone can mentor.

The biggest thing is to “focus on what really matters to you — to play the game and actually have a good time with your friends and your boys," Soto said. "That’s one of the things that helped me get away from my own pressure.”

Which brings us back to those early years with the Nationals. That 2019 team was left for dead, much like this one is. But its core had a beating heart that proved stronger than the slew of injuries and losses they suffered.

Even when things were bad, "they actually made me feel like one of them,” Soto said. It wasn’t like, “‘Oh, it’s the rookie.’…They made me feel like, ‘Juan Soto, you’re part of us. You’re going to take us all the way.’”

And he did.

And now?

“I’m trying to do the same thing.”

By Laura Albanese

laura.albanese@newsday.com@AlbaneseLaura

Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.