Juan Soto is a once-in-a-generation player, in his prime, coming off the best season of his career ¡­ and that season might have been even better than you think.

There are a million reasons why Soto landed a record 15-year, $765 million contract with the Mets. We already know he's going to keep crushing baseballs in 2025 and beyond, even though he's leaving Yankee Stadium and its short porch for Citi Field. We know he'll probably be setting records and blowing past milestones over the rest of his career.

But here's one more way to look at what makes Soto so uniquely great. It's a way to measure his signature trait as a hitter, the very best quality he's bringing to the Mets: Being the toughest out in baseball.

Statcast generates "expected" stats for every hitter based on their quality of contact -- the exit velocity and launch angle of all the balls they hit -- combined with the walks they draw and the strikeouts they take.

The first ones you see on Statcast's expected stats leaderboard are expected batting average and expected slugging percentage, and Soto does excel in both of those. His .316 xBA with the Yankees in 2024 ranked second in the Majors to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s .321, and his .646 xSLG ranked third behind Aaron Judge's .723 and Shohei Ohtani's .660.

But the skill that makes Juan Soto Juan Soto is that he will battle his way on base at all costs. So let's look at the third part of his expected slash line: expected on-base percentage.

Soto's xOBP this season was .444. That ranked No. 1 in the Majors. But not just for 2024.

Soto just had the single best season by xOBP of any hitter in the entire Statcast era, which goes back to 2015.

Highest expected OBP in a single season
Statcast era (since 2015)

• 1. Juan Soto, 2024: .444
• 2-T. Joey Votto, 2015: .443
• 2-T. Mike Trout, 2019: .443
• 2-T. Juan Soto, 2021: .443
• 5. Mike Trout, 2016: .436
• 6-T. Bryce Harper, 2015: .433
• 6-T. Ronald Acu?a Jr., 2023: .433
• 6-T. Aaron Judge, 2024: .433
• 9. Miguel Cabrera, 2015: .431
• 10. Mike Trout, 2018: .423

Juan Soto, in other words, is one of the greatest on-base machines we've seen step into a batter's box in the last decade. You could argue that he is the greatest.

Soto, Trout and Votto are a perfect top of the leaderboard. These are three of the greatest hitters of their generation, linked by the fundamental skill of "not making outs."

In 2024, Soto's best season yet, his expected on-base percentage was even better than his actual on-base percentage, .419, which is an elite mark by itself. He was better even, by a hair, than he was in his previous best season in 2021.

Soto also outranked both MVPs -- his Yankees superstar teammate Aaron Judge, who led MLB in actual on-base percentage at .458, and Shohei Ohtani, who led the NL at .390.

Highest expected OBP, 2024
Qualified hitters

1. Juan Soto: .444
2. Aaron Judge: .433
3. Shohei Ohtani: .388
4. Vladimir Guerrero Jr.: .384
5. Jurickson Profar: .380

Soto's combination of elite contact hitting and elite plate discipline puts him in a league of his own. This season, 24% of Soto's swings produced hard contact (an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher), the best among any hitter who took at least 1,000 swings. Also this season, Soto only chased 18% of pitches outside the strike zone, second-best among any hitter who saw at least 1,000 pitches that were out of the zone.

Soto and Judge were the only two hitters who ranked in the uppermost echelon of the league in both of those two categories -- hard-hit rate per swing and chase rate -- and Soto was slightly better than Judge at both.

The consistent hard contact earns Soto his hits. The eye for the strike zone earns him his walks. The two together make Soto more deserving of reaching base than any MLB hitter, whether you look at who he is right now, entering 2025, or who he's been since he broke into the big leagues as a 19-year-old in 2018.

Soto's 2024 season pulled his career expected on-base percentage up to .417 -- the best of any player in the Statcast era.

Highest expected OBP, Statcast era
Players with 1,000+ PA since 2015

1. Juan Soto: .417
2. Mike Trout: .408
3. Aaron Judge: .401
4. David Ortiz: .396
5. Joey Votto: .394

That almost perfectly matches his actual career on-base percentage of .421, which is the best among all active players.

Soto also just spent the 2024 postseason proving that he's the same hitter on the biggest stage and can even take his game to a higher level.

Soto's actual on base percentage on the Yankees' playoff run was a ridiculous .469. His expected on-base percentage in the postseason was .478.

Somehow, it got even higher. Somehow, you would expect Soto to get on base nearly half the time over a full World Series run, based on how he was squaring up the ball and drawing walks while facing the toughest competition the Major Leagues has to offer.

Soto's .478 xOBP was one of the highest in a single postseason in the Statcast era. His career postseason xOBP is now among the best of the Statcast era, too. Soto has a .413 xOBP across his playoff runs with the Nationals in 2019, Padres in 2022 and Yankees in 2024.

Highest expected OBP in a single postseason, Statcast era
Hitters with 50+ PA in that postseason

• 1. Freddie Freeman, 2020: .490
• 2. Juan Soto, 2024: .478
• 3. Bryce Harper, 2023: .477
• 4-T. Jose Altuve, 2020: .459
• 4-T. J.D. Martinez, 2018: .459

Best overall postseason xOBP, Statcast era
Hitters with 100+ postseason PA since 2015

1. Bryce Harper: .432
2. J.D. Martinez: .416
3. Juan Soto: .413
4. Daniel Murphy: .400
5. Freddie Freeman: .399

Soto is going to reach base 40% of the time in the regular season. Then he's going to do it again in the playoffs. Then he's going to repeat the process, again and again, for years and years.

The current version of Juan Soto is an on-base threat equal to peak Mike Trout, or peak Joey Votto. That is the caliber of hitter the Mets are getting.