Juan Soto is an outfielder for the New York Mets. According to his stats – his career batting average is .283, he finished 3rd in MVP voting once, this year, he’s hitting under .250 – he’s an average Major League Baseball player. But his contract says different. The Mets signed him in the offseason for all the years and all the money. So, according to his bank account, he’s the greatest to ever play the game.

Yesterday, he lined a ball off of the fence, stood in the box smiling it, and loafed into first with a 350 ft single. When reporters asked if he thought that was a problem, he quickly responded, “No.” Now, the Mets manager is going to “talk to” him about his lack of effort.

There is a lot about that paragraph that is distasteful, but the one that stands out is that the team will “talk to” him. For what? For being Juan Soto. By most accounts, he’s not exactly a high character guy, he’s not winning Man of the Year awards anytime soon, he’s his own biggest fan. If you believe they’ll actually talk to and/or discipline him for his actions and attitude (and that is a very big IF – it’s likely just something that upper management thinks is a good thing to say, condescending to us, as if we’ll scoop up whatever they toss our way, no matter how silly and nonsensical it is), my question is why?

I have the honor of officiating many weddings every year. Some feel like they’ll last forever, and some don’t. Some men will be great husbands, but other boys shouldn’t be getting married at all. I also do a fair amount of pre- and post-marital counseling (mostly listening and allowing each the space to be heard by the other), and what I find in stressful situations is usually pretty similar.

They marry Juan Soto, and then, when Juan Soto does Juan Soto things, behaves like Juan Soto always has, they appear to be shocked and dismayed. But they married Juan Soto. Do they expect him to be Derek Jeter or Nolan Ryan after the wedding day?

It’s very strange. Let’s say girl X is having an affair with Juan Soto, who is dating/engaged/married to girl Y. Juan Soto ends up probably being found out by Y (because Juan Soto’s don’t usually turn on a dime for less), and leaves Y to be with X. She finally gets to have him to herself, to build a life together. He’ll change, he loves her, whatever. Then, when he is discovered to be having a new affair with girl Z, X is absolutely shocked! How could he do this to me?!!

If you marry Juan Soto and he doesn’t have a job, has never had a job, and you are the one who pays for everything, maybe getting married expecting him to be a different person, one who works and pays, might not be the best idea. Maybe you still want to marry him, who am I to judge? You can marry who you want, it’s the expectation that’s the problem. The Mets hired a guy who turns doubles and triples into singles, and is incredibly surly about the suggestion that he might have any responsibility to his team to hustle out an extra base. After marrying him and giving him the GDP of most countries, why would they dream they’d end up with Mike Trout?

Why would girl X think Juan Soto would be faithful to her, when he’s not evidenced faithfulness as a characteristic he values too much? She wouldn’t. And neither would the Mets. That’s why it’s sort of offensive to pretend to mind, 50 games into the first season of the marriage.

Maybe he’ll change, hopefully he will, but isn’t it a little unfair to him to assume he will, and hold it against him if he doesn’t? He’s Juan Soto, and being Juan Soto got him 3/4 of a billion dollars, or the spouse, or the job, or or or.

But aren’t we made to grow and mature, to transform? Yes, of course, but we choose not to lean into everything we’re made for all the time, for a lot of reasons, some much less than 3/4 of a billion reasons. And that’s why we should be very careful who we marry.