Most significant stories of 2021: Soto's historic second half

As we reach the final week of the year, we're taking a look back at the Nationals' most significant stories of 2021. Some of them are uplifting. Some of them are depressing. All of them were significant in telling the story of the 2021 season. We continue today with one of the best developments of the year: Juan Soto's historic second half and MVP candidacy. ...

It wasn't all bad for the Nationals this year. Sure, the team lost 97 games, traded away some of its biggest-name veterans and endured through a midsummer stretch of daily disasters, but sprinkled in there were some positive performances on an individual level.

And no individual performed better than the young man who now stands as the face of the roster: Juan Soto.

This was no surprise, of course. Soto already was a superstar prior to the 2021 season. He burst onto the scene as a 19-year-old in 2018, made himself into a household name during the Nats' 2019 championship run and led the league in a host of offensive categories during the shortened 2020 season.

What Soto did this year, though, said plenty more about him. Because for the first time, he had to bounce back from a substandard performance and still wound up with season totals as good as anybody in the majors.

It's easy to forget now, but at the midway point of the season Soto's numbers were quite pedestrian, certainly by his lofty standards. On the morning of July 6, he was batting .274 with only nine doubles and nine homers, a .425 slugging percentage and .818 OPS that ranked 20th in the National League. Yes, he was drawing his walks and he was hitting the ball hard. But he was hitting everything into the ground, leading the league in double plays.

Through it all, everyone insisted Soto would figure things out. It wouldn't take a major overhaul of his swing to get back on track, just a minor tweak of a few things to help him elevate the ball better and turn those groundouts into singles, doubles and homers.

Oh, it may also have taken an invitation to the Home Run Derby.

Scoff at the notion all you want, but Soto honestly believed participation in the annual midsummer power exhibition could help get his swing right again. And sure enough, after putting on a jaw-dropping show at Coors Field, he burst out of the gates in the second half with an awesome hitting display: 10-for-17 with two doubles, five homers and 11 RBIs in his first four games coming out of the break.

Soto never looked back. Even as the rest of the team collapsed in July, he remained red-hot at the plate. And even after the sell-off left him sticking out like a sore thumb in a depth-lacking new Nationals lineup, he kept it going right through September.

If opponents decided to pitch around Soto, he simply took his walks, an astounding 87 of them in his final 72 games. But if they did give him something to hit, he hit it with authority, batting .348/.525/.639 in those 72 games.

Soto became only the seventh player ever to produce a .525 on-base percentage in the second half of a season, joining Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, Harry Heilmann, Ted Williams, Barry Bonds and Joey Votto. And he became only the fourth player ever to reach base four times in 26 or more games during a single season, joining Ruth, Bonds and Lou Gehrig.

"I played with a guy that was pretty impressive in his day, and that was Barry," manager Davey Martinez said during the season. If he keeps going the way he's going, if you compare anybody to Barry, it would be Juan right now."

Soto even managed to do something Bonds never did: Nearly win the MVP while playing for a losing club. Each of Bonds' seven NL MVP awards came while playing for a team that won 90-plus games, as did his two second-place finishes. Soto managed to finish runner-up to former teammate Bryce Harper despite playing on a last-place club.

Obviously, the Nationals have no interest in making that a recurring event. They don't want to waste the prime of Soto's career. But they're in a tricky spot now that they've embarked on an organizational rebuild, having stripped the roster of almost everyone who helped win the World Series two years ago except for Soto and a few others.

Soto has three years left before he can become a free agent. That means the Nats have three years either to sign him to a long-term deal that likely would shatter all previous MLB records or get good enough to win again before he can leave for somewhere else.

That, of course, is what lies ahead. For now, just sit back and appreciate what Soto has done in his first four years in D.C. Especially this one.