The New York Mets are trying every tactic in the book to get their lineup back on track.
In particular, Juan Soto is struggling. He’s 3-for-18 over the last five games (entering Friday).
Per New York Post’s Mike Puma, the Mets held an abnormally long hitters’ meeting on Tuesday during the Red Sox series, the details of which reveal some out-of-the-box thinking from New York.
“The daily hitters’ meeting that includes Mets staff and position players extended well past the normal 10-15 minutes on Tuesday as the group remained holed up in a small room within the cramped visitor’s clubhouse at Fenway Park,” Puma wrote.
“To the reporters who cover the team on a daily basis, the length of the meeting, which extended beyond a half-hour, seemed odd.”
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“Were players soul-searching … ? Was the veteran leadership trying to establish accountability for at-bats … ?”
“In this case, a mixture of levity and psychology accounted for the longer meeting.”
“Antoan Richardson, the team’s first-base coach, produces occasional videos in which he provides commentary — often funny — about the previous game or maybe something happening on that given day. The Mets got their laughs.”
“Hitting coach Eric Chavez had another presentation that went beyond the daily preparation for the opposing pitcher. Chavez showed a TikTok video about the benefits of visualization.”
“The video included athletes from other sports, such as Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt and Kobe Bryant, who used visualization to help fuel their success.”
“It’s just different tools that others that I’ve known used and some stuff that I did,” Chavez said (per Puma). “I came across something a few days earlier and liked it, and then I just looked at some videos that we could play a short clip. It’s just sports psychology.”
The Mets were No. 15 in Major League Baseball in team batting average (.246) entering Friday, and No. 9 in team OPS (.736) — not terrible by any means, but far from elite, especially given the talent in New York’s lineup.
The $765 million man Soto is hitting .243/.374/.429 this season with eight home runs and 21 RBI, a slash line far inferior to his career .283/.418/.527.
There’s still plenty of time for Soto to turns things around in his first season with the Mets, and perhaps some psychological adjustments — and humor — will help Soto do just that.
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