NEW YORK — Juan Soto is playing some of the best baseball of his life right now at the World Baseball Classic. He is laughing, joking, hitting walk-off home runs and clearly enjoying every minute of it. He also dropped a comment that has every New York Yankees fan on the internet doing a victory lap.
After the Dominican Republic’s 12-1 mercy-rule blowout of the Netherlands on Saturday in Miami, Soto spoke with MLB Network’s Siera Santos about the teams he has enjoyed playing for most. His answer set social media on fire and left Mets fans scrambling for explanations.
“2019 and 2024, those were really fun teams I played with, but this has to be top of the top,” Soto told Santos. “You have the whole family, the whole Dominican Republic cheering for you.”
The 2019 Washington Nationals won the World Series. The 2024 Yankees went to the Fall Classic. The 2025 New York Mets, the team that handed Soto a 15-year, $765 million contract, did not get a mention.
The omission that broke the internet
The clip went viral within hours. One post on X amassed over 500,000 views in four hours. Yankees fans flooded the comments with some version of the same message: Soto misses the Bronx.
“How do you say you miss being a Yankee without saying you miss being a Yankee,” one user wrote. Another simply posted: “Sounds like he regrets signing with the Mets.”
Mets fans pushed back hard. Their argument is simple. Soto named 2019 and 2024 because those are the two years he played in the World Series. The 2025 Mets missed the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. Why would a competitor list that as a fun year?
That logic makes sense. But it does not make the omission sting any less for a fan base that watched their owner spend $765 million to make Soto the centerpiece of a championship build. The fact that he rattled off his favorite teams and did not even reference his current employer is, at minimum, awkward.
Boone could not resist a jab
Yankees manager Aaron Boone added fuel to the fire. During a March 9 appearance on WFAN with host Evan Roberts, a well-known Mets fan, Boone was asked if Soto’s decision to choose the Mets still bothered him. The Yankees skipper turned the question into a playful dig aimed squarely at Roberts and the Mets fan base.
The exchange went viral on its own. Boone was clearly joking. But the fact that the Yankees manager felt comfortable enough to troll Soto’s choice on a public radio show tells you how the organization views the situation. They lost the bidding war last December when the Mets offered $765 million with no deferrals and a $75 million signing bonus. The Yankees countered with a 16-year, $760 million proposal that fell short.
It still stings in the Bronx. Soto was spectacular in his one Yankees season, slashing .288/.419/.569 with 41 home runs and a career-high 8.3 WAR. He and Aaron Judge formed the most feared 1-2 punch in baseball. Then he left.
What Soto actually did with the Mets in 2025
The numbers in Queens were not bad. Soto hit .263/.396/.525 with 43 home runs, 38 stolen bases and over 100 walks. He became the first Met to post a 40-homer, 20-steal, 100-RBI, 100-walk season. By any measure, he was one of the best players in baseball.
But the team around him did not get the job done. The Mets collapsed late and missed the postseason on the final day. For a franchise that spent historic money to build a contender, that ending was a disaster. Soto not mentioning it as one of his fun years is not exactly shocking. It just confirms what everyone already suspected: losing is not fun, even on a $765 million deal.
What this means for Yankees fans
Soto is not coming back. That much is obvious. He signed a 15-year deal and the Mets are not letting him go. But the fact that he openly named his Yankees season as one of his two favorite years in baseball, and left out his first Mets season, is validation for a fan base that felt burned by his departure.
The Yankees replaced Soto with Cody Bellinger, who signed for a fraction of the cost. It is not the same. Everyone in the Bronx knows that. But moments like this, when Soto’s own words suggest he had more fun in pinstripes than in blue and orange, are the kind of emotional wins Yankees fans will hold onto for a long time.
Soto capped his Saturday performance with a 419-foot walk-off homer to end the mercy-rule game. He told Albert Pujols he did not want to come out of the lineup. He is locked in, confident and clearly having the time of his life with the Dominican Republic.
When the WBC ends, he goes back to Queens. Yankees fans will always wonder what could have been. And after Saturday’s interview, they have one more reason to believe Soto wonders the same thing.
