Out of proportion NY Mets drama with Juan Soto is a pink elephant in the room

There’s an elephant in the room with the New York Mets right now but we need to clarify some things first.

In first place 16 games into the season with very little drama, the NY Post managed to blow some Juan Soto comments completely out of proportion. You’d think the circus was at Citi Field with the way Soto’s comments were spun into a variety of negative interpretations from dissing Pete Alonso to missing the New York Yankees and hitting in front of Aaron Judge.

Soto didn’t drop any untruths. His only mistake was being a little too honest and trusting. The irony is while Mike Puma was able to pull out what could have been easily misinterpreted information from Soto, his colleague Jon Heyman fired back by saying Soto should have kept his comments to himself. Which is it Media Machine?

Manufactured Mets drama is a pink elephant that won’t be a big deal

There are a few different kinds of elephants, but the one on display in the clubhouse here is a pink one. They’re not real. An idiom referring to a hallucination, that’s all this big, bad controversy truly is.

“If it bleeds, it leads” remains true in the sports world. What sells newspapers, or at least online subscriptions, is controversy. Soto referring to Aaron Judge as “the best hitter in baseball” broke no new ground. Did it come across as a tad too much like an excuse for explaining his early season struggles with the Mets? Maybe. But that’s the thing about excuses. There often is some truth to it.

Soto is in year two as a New York athlete. It doesn’t seem like he has caught onto the game just yet. Not everyone realizes quickly that the spotlight in the Big Apple is different. Anything that could be used against you will be.

Swagger at the plate often on full display, Soto might need to temper himself a little more moving forward. Fortunately, Francisco Lindor is the guy to ask a little more about this. Lindor has always had flair. He hasn’t toned it down at all, but he has matured. Having children can do that to you. Enough scrutiny and a few more birthday candles doesn’t hurt either.

It’s easy to forget Soto is only 26. Playing in D.C. where he was always a god, in San Diego for a short period of time where the weather eases any tension, and a season in the Bronx where everything was peachy, Soto will have to do more than change his approach at the plate. Tame replies is all Soto should consider going forward. Until he figures out exactly how to navigate the wild world of the New York media, he shouldn’t talk about any players but himself. As he can learn here, it can become a bigger story than it needs to be.