When A.J. Preller informed Juan Soto that he had been traded to the Yankees, the Padres general manager reached a preoccupied 25-year-old.
“When I received that call, I was actually playing Nintendo with my friends,” Soto said over an introductory Zoom call in December. “It’s one of my hobbies to play video games and to spend time with my friends and have a good time.”
Perhaps Soto was using the console to take his mind off the trade rumors that had been swirling since the end of the 2023 season and throughout the Winter Meetings. However, the slugger doesn’t always use video games to get away from baseball.
The three-time All-Star considers MLB: The Show, a PlayStation staple, to be the game he’s best at. Big surprise there.
But instead of launching home runs as his digitized self, Soto prefers a challenge that drives real-life pitchers crazy.
“I like to face myself and strike him out,” a laughing Soto told the Daily News. “Unless I’m winning by a lot! If I’m winning by a lot, I put it right in the middle so the guy can hit it and feel good about myself.”
The lefty swinger, known for his elite ability to control the zone, added that he’s easier to K in the video game than he is in major league games.
Soto would not reveal his go-to sequence for striking himself out, as he feared he might provide useful information to pitchers that he has to face in the real world.
“I cannot give you that!” he said, his tone comical and serious all at once.
So The News decided to ask the Yankees’ undisputed video game expert what he would do to get Soto out.
“In The Show? I don’t know,” Tommy Kahnle said. “But in real life, he got me the first time I faced him. I didn’t really know who he was. I knew he was just a young, upcoming kid. And a first-pitch fastball, he took me off the wall. And then the next at-bat was in the playoffs. Three changeups, strike out!”
Kahnle, thankful that he no longer has to face Soto on the mound, reasoned that he would probably attack him the same way in The Show if he were pitching as himself. His changeup is his No. 1 weapon, after all.
Speaking of weapons, Soto’s hobby is not limited to baseball. He also plays Call of Duty, though not as much as he used to.
“I’m not on [Blake] Snell’s level,” Soto said, referring to his ex-Padres teammate and a known Twitch streamer. “He’s crazy good. I was good, but I stopped playing it for a little bit and they changed the game.
“Now I’m bad. I haven’t played in a while.”
It’s unusual to hear Soto say he’s bad at something, but COD isn’t the only game that gives him fits. He said that FIFA is “the game I’m worst at.”
“I like to play everything,” Soto said, adding that NBA 2K is also in rotation. “I tell the guys I play everything. I’m average in everything. I’m not really good at one, but I’m average.”
At this point, some Yankees fans may be worrying that Soto spends too much time playing video games.
However, he doesn’t bring them into the clubhouse. Rather, it’s an activity reserved for the end of the work day when Soto has returned home or to a hotel.
“When I’m here, I’m focusing on one thing: how we figure out how to win a game,” he said. Bringing video games to the clubhouse, I don’t think that’s gonna be good for me. I don’t know, maybe for somebody else it works. It helps them out to, I don’t know, relieve some stress.”
Kahnle has a noticeably different approach.
While the reliever’s young children cut into his video game habits over the winter, the long baseball campaign offers plenty of downtime. Kahnle often spends it with a suitcase-like gaming station. When it folds open, the top half houses a TV, while the bottom half stores a PlayStation, controllers, games and other accessories.
During the season, Kahnle can often be seen playing the system in front of his locker before games. It’s as much a must-have on road trips as his favorite glove, and it’s a hit on team flights.
“I guess I do it almost every day during the regular season. I started doing it in 2017,” Kahnle said. “Then, I was doing it more in a back room. Now it’s kind of gravitated to my locker because I’m just too lazy to walk all the way over there. For me, it keeps my mind off the game, I guess. You’re just kind of not always thinking about baseball.”
While Soto doesn’t want to play in the clubhouse like Kahnle — he said his teammate won’t tempt him — he does take his video games seriously.
Soto wears a headset so that he can talk to friends and other gamers online, and he’s been using a customized Yankees controller since the trade. The controller is half navy blue and half pinstriped. It’s complete with his No. 22 and the words “Soto Shuffle,” as well a silhouette of his signature move in the batter’s box.
Juan Soto has a custom Yankees PS5 controller. This is gorgeous. #Yankees pic.twitter.com/tHJTg6VbFL
— Fireside Yankees (@FiresideYankees) February 18, 2024
Soto said the controller came courtesy of SCUF Gaming, a company that specializes in these sorts of things for professional gamers.
He said the company was going to make him a Nationals controller when he played for the team, but Washington traded him to San Diego in 2022 before SCUF could finish the job. So Soto received a Padres controller instead.
Perhaps there’s some recency bias, but Soto said the Yankees controller is “one of the best I’ve ever had.” The question now is whether it will be his last.
“I don’t know,” the impending free agent said with a smile. “We’ll see.”
