It is a piece of skill Lamine Yamal is making an art form — and yet another reason the 17-year-old is one of the most exciting players in world football.

The Barcelona forward has used the ‘trivela’ — an outside-of-the-boot shot or pass — to provide three of his nine assists in La Liga this season.

His latest came against Mallorca last week and there was one in the Barcelona derby against Espanyol on November 3, but the trivela versus Villarreal in September was a thing of beauty.

Trivela is a Portuguese word, and the story behind the action getting that name remains unclear. In Brazil, where Portuguese is the official language, such strikes are named ‘Tres Dedos’, as they are produced by using the three outer toes of your foot. The prefix ‘tri-’ means three of something.

The most established theory to explain the trivela refers to a physics phenomenon named trivelocidade, as Professor Salvato Trigo, from Fernando Pessoa University in the Portuguese city of Porto, explained in 2018. “Trivela would be a sort of acronym to that word. It is difficult to find any other etymological origin to the word, as it only started to be used in the 20th century and fully related to football,” he wrote.

There is another less accepted but equally fitting story. According to this theory, the word trivela was used in Porto to refer to buckled shoes mainly linked to higher social classes. These buckles, or trivelas, were placed on the outer side of the shoe, so shooting with them helped give the ball spin.

Legendary Brazil left-back Roberto Carlos, former Portugal forward Ricardo Quaresma, Real Madrid’s Luka Modric and the 1970 World Cup-winning Brazilian attacking midfielder Rivellino were masters of the trivela with their free kicks, shots and passes in the past.

Today, it is becoming Yamal’s trademark.

“Lamine has been using this since a very young age,” Jordi Font, who managed Yamal in Barcelona’s under-10s and used to pick him up from his dad’s house in Rocafonda, north of Barcelona, to drive him to games, tells The Athletic.

“I think it comes from the street football he’s grown into. Playing in the futsal pitch of his neighbourhood, where you can use the walls to pass the ball and dribble past players, and being a bit cheeky while playing against older opponents.”

Albert Puig saw the same two years later as manager of Barca’s under-12s.

“This is not a type of strike that is worked on in La Masia (the club’s famed academy), we did not have instructions to apply it,” Puig tells The Athletic. “I am aware that now there is a rule in Barca’s youth ranks that they want to make kids play at one or two touches at most. This has pros and cons, but Lamine got this touch we are talking about by allowing him to have more time with the ball.

“Back in the day, Lamine was still not doing crosses with it, like he did in Mallorca, because you need to add a layer of strength he did not have yet. But ball-carrying, passing and combining with his team-mates, as well as finishing situations…we have seen plenty of those with Lamine using the outside of his left foot.”

Quaresma was one of the trivela’s main proponents (Getty Images; design by Eamonn Dalton)

Before any game, Yamal likes to go on YouTube and search for videos of different players’ highlights such as Neymar, his favourite player growing up, or another Barca predecessor, Lionel Messi. But the trivela has come more naturally.

All three of his trivela assists this season vouch for that, as they all came in situations where defenders could not expect that pass.

This is the position where he received the ball against Villarreal, when he spotted Raphinha getting ready for a run behind the defensive line.

This is the pass he then made.

Against Espanyol last month, he provided a trivela assist for Dani Olmo as the attacking midfielder crashed into the box.

Then there was his most recent trivela against Mallorca, where his former manager Puig highlights how difficult it was for the defender to predict the pass.

“If you look at his body shape, it does not look like he is going to cut inside his left foot and dribble,” says Puig. “The defender tries to give him space to run towards his right foot, but then he pulls out his trick.”

The teenager’s confidence has grown so much that he is now trying to score with a trivela — and almost managed it against Sevilla in October.

Yamal receives the ball on the left side of the pitch, near the edge of the opposition box, and surprised everyone with what seemed an impossible shot…

… only for goalkeeper Orjan Nyland to produce a save at full stretch.

“Lamine must keep using the trivela because he’s proved it’s effective, it’s far from a luxury touch,” says Font. “A cross like this is extremely useful to send the ball past the first defenders in position to intercept the pass, as the curve makes it tougher. Lamine is going to keep trying new things because his technical skill set allows him to do things others can’t think about.”

Puig agrees: “His creativity, altogether with how his physicality evolves, will keep shaping Lamine as a player.

“That is not a comparison with Messi, because I don’t think it’s any good to make them with Lamine, but if you look at how the Argentinian was when he started at Barca and the player he is now, it is totally different. Messi went from an out-and-out, super-explosive winger who started off on the right-hand side and could not be stopped to a footballer who learnt how to manage his efforts, read the game and roam from a more central position, which gave Barca an incredible weapon.

“We don’t know exactly what player Lamine is going to evolve into, but he has the talent and the intelligence to keep trying new things and make them useful with the best football he can play at every moment.”

Yamal’s trivela assist against Mallorca (Getty Images; design by Eamonn Dalton)

After his latest trivela masterclass against Mallorca, Yamal was interviewed by Catalan television station TV3.

“Is there any way to do those passes you do in video games?,” one journalist asked.

Yamal, an avid gamer, laughed as he replied: “Yes, you can, to be fair. You need to press the L2 button and then pass, go and try it! I think it is a pass that I can do very well, I am confident with it, so I will not stop trying.”

The morning after the game, the city of Barcelona woke up with Yamal’s pass immortalised on its streets.

Local artist Miki Noelle turned a picture of Yamal executing a trivela into a sticker he printed off and glued to a wall in the Gracia district. Noelle has produced various Barca-themed stickers this season, illustrating their best moments so far under new coach Hansi Flick.

The Yamal sticker, topped with the caption “L2 + X”, referring to how he said his pass could be replicated on PlayStation, went viral on social media. Yamal himself spotted it, shared it and changed his Instagram profile picture to it for a week.

It will not be the last time Yamal’s trivelas are venerated in Barcelona.

(Top photo: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

In some ways, John Malecki can thank a cheap coffee table for his 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube.

Had he owned a sturdier table, maybe he wouldn’t have thought twice about his enthusiasm for HGTV’s home improvement show “Fixer Upper”, which he watched on repeat as a fringe offensive lineman in the NFL.

As it turns out, though, Malecki’s table broke right before his final preseason with his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers in 2013. And as the “Fixer Upper” fan he was, building a new one sounded way better than just buying a replacement.

At that point, Malecki was on his fifth team in four years. An undrafted free agent out of Pitt, football had always been his north star, guiding him in any decision since elementary school.

Now, in his mid-20s, his north star was dimming.

In between training camp practices, with the help of some Home Depot two-by-fours, Malecki constructed a homemade coffee table for his South Side Pittsburgh apartment. As he reflected on his appreciation for the work Chip and Joanna Gaines did on “Fixer Upper”, he thought, “I kind of want to build my own cool s—.”

In the weeks that followed — and especially after his NFL career ended when he was cut in September that year — he bought some new woodworking tools. The start of what would be a large collection — and a whole new passion.

Today, Malecki’s 1.2 million YouTube subscribers tune in to his woodworking channel to watch him build everything from cutting boards and end tables to a hidden whiskey cabinet and a door inspired by “The Lord of the Rings.”

Like others who pour themselves into their work, Malecki did not view himself as someone who had many interests outside of football. When he started building his coffee table, he had no formal training and didn’t know what he was doing; he was just curious and allowed himself to follow it.

So what happens when we pay a bit more attention to those everyday afterthoughts and give ourselves the freedom to explore new areas of growth?

Passions can be brought out of us at odd times, but most often when we feel an underlying need for change in our lives. For Malecki, that meant creating post-football opportunities to experiment, fail and develop.

While watching one of his videos now, you might notice a tattoo on Malecki’s arm. He got it after one of his college coaches used to preach the importance of perseverance.

It says: Keep chopping wood.

Two years earlier, Malecki was holed up in an extended stay hotel on Christmas Day, alone except for a bottle of Jack Daniels and an elk puzzle. A member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers practice squad at the time, Malecki was already on his third team that season. The Bucs played the next day, and the bottle and puzzle filled his time away from home.

Back in Pennsylvania, Malecki’s family was crafting its annual lavish spread: filet roast paired with pasta made from scratch, his grandmother’s homemade gnocchi, his mother’s pumpkin pie.

His mom had sent him a care package that week, trying to replicate the experience.

Still, he said, “I was super bummed.”

And yet he was also living out everything he had always wanted. When he was a 10-year-old growing up in Murrysville, 30 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh, he had placed a piece of paper in a time capsule with his dream written on it: “I’m going to be in the NFL.”

If that meant Christmases alone in a hotel room and away from his family, that was part of the deal.

“At the time I was a firm believer that you have to suffer in order to get what you want in life,” he said.

Following that season with the Bucs, he had two more stints with the Steelers sandwiched around a brief stop in Washington. When Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin called him into his office in 2013, Malecki’s intuition told him it might be permanent.

“Appreciate your work, John,” Tomlin told him.

His football career was over.

The next spring, Malecki interviewed for a sales job at a metal byproduct company. He hadn’t played in the NFL in months, and what he wanted more than a sales job was another shot in the NFL.

But when the owner of the company told him during the interview, “This is great, John, but you don’t have any experience,” it was like a slap across the face.

“I was useless,” Malecki said. “I had no skills. … All my childhood hopes and dreams crumbling. I was just sad. Just lost in multiple facets of life.”

The one thing Malecki continued to do during that time of uncertainty was build new stuff out of wood.

One day Malecki was hanging out with former teammate Baron Batch, who had just bought a new house. The lack of furniture in the house was glaring. No table or chairs, just couches.

They were sitting in the new, empty garage, looking at the workbench in the corner, crowded with random supplies on top of it.

“What if we built stuff?” Malecki asked Batch.

The same excitement Malecki had before he built his apartment coffee table crept in. Soon after, Batch’s house was furnished with homemade tables, cabinets and shelving.

Buying tools off Craigslist, using more Home Depot two-by-fours and an old jointer his dad gifted him, Malecki started to spend most of his time attempting new builds.

“I was just boozing and hanging out with my buddies,” Malecki laughed. “We were curious a lot, and I was trying to figure out that next thing in life.”

He began posting on Facebook and Instagram, showing what he and Batch were doing. He had no expectations of where this could lead. But comments started to roll in:

I would love one.

Could you make me that?

Batch and Malecki decided to open up a studio together full-time, called Studio A.M., where they combined Batch’s artistic visions with Malecki’s woodworking skills. As time went on, and his Instagram and Facebook following grew, he decided a YouTube presence could help, so he started posting a few videos.

“They are so bad,” Malecki said. “Just awful.”

Then, in 2016, he posted a video of a cross-cut sled, a common woodworking tool. It was a basic YouTube post, and he expected the usual mild response. Except it got a couple hundred thousand views.

“Holy s—,” he thought, “I don’t know how to capitalize on this, but this feels good.”

As he was finding his way, he kept telling himself the same mantra he used during his football career: “Just do the reps, John. You go to the gym, you hate it, just do the reps. You don’t like this drill, you don’t like this exercise, the coach said do it, you do it.”

Malecki allowed himself the freedom to explore an area he was curious about, gradually letting go of the idea his only purpose in life was football. But he did keep his sense of purpose, the things he believed in that translated across fields.

“Effort and attitude,” Malecki said. “Those are two of the controllable things you have. I took that from football and applied it dramatically to the next phase of my life. You can’t lose if you don’t quit.”

In 2018 Malecki signed a year-long sponsorship with a company for $65,000, his big financial breakthrough. It was the first time he realized he could actually make a living woodworking. Now, he makes almost what he did in his best year playing in the NFL, in one month.

“We were just taken aback at how creative he was,” said Max Starks, a former Steelers teammate. “We knew he was creative, we knew he was funny, but to combine both of those things and do it so seamlessly and be genuine about it is something that’s kind of fascinating.”

Former teammate Ramon Foster first met Malecki as a Steeler, and it quickly became apparent what kind of person he was.

“He came to work every day, he took a lot of crap, and he stayed and persevered,” Foster said.

So when Malecki started to sell his creations, Foster wanted to be one of his first big sales. He now owns a customized University of Tennessee cutting board, along with a coffee table, corn hole boards and cutting boards crafted by Malecki.

In return, Foster asks for only one thing.

“I just want to put it out there,” Foster said. “If he ever goes and meets Chip and Joanna Gaines and he doesn’t invite me and my wife, we’re gonna have a real problem!”

(Photo: Justin K. Aller / Getty Images)

DALLAS — So perhaps you’re wondering this week: What would I have to do to get some baseball team to pay ME $700 million?

Hey, excellent question. And I think we’ve figured that out.

On one hand, you could be a unicorn — a once-in-a-lifetime home run hero/Cy Young starter/make-the-impossible-seem-possible kind of guy. Like Shohei Ohtani, for instance. Or …

You could just be Ted Williams.

All right, let’s take a deep breath now. It always seems sacrilegious to call Juan Soto — or anyone else — a modern-day Ted Williams. But this is the story where we let you know that it’s not as crazy as you want to believe it is.

The Mets obviously think so, since they just agreed to deposit $765 million in Soto’s money market account over the next 16 years. But you should know that they’re not the only team that sees this Juan Soto/Ted Williams thing. Far from it.

Consider the response from one big-league coach this week when we asked for his reaction to Soto’s staggering new contract.

“What it says to me,” he replied, laughing, “is that Ted Williams would make a hell of a lot of money if he was playing today.”

True!

Then there’s this story, told by an executive of a team that had interest in trading for Soto in 2022, when the Nationals were dangling him. Just to make sure he had the go-ahead, this exec and another high-ranking member of his front office decided they’d better run it past their owner first. This is how the exec remembers the conversation going:

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“He (the owner) said something like: ‘I understand he’s great. But can you put in context how great he is?’

“And I said: ‘I think he’s Ted Williams.’

“And he just gave me a look like: ‘You’re a freaking lunatic.’ But I just said, ‘No, that’s kind of what he is.’”

We couldn’t have said it any better. That’s kind of what he is. He’s not Ted Williams 2.0 because nobody is. That isn’t possible. Williams finished his career with a 1.116 OPS and a .344 career batting average. Nobody is doing that in this era. Nobody.

But is Juan Soto kind of the 21^st-century version of Ted Williams? There’s no getting around that.

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If the question is more like — What hitter in the history of baseball is the most comparable to Soto through age 25? — there is only one answer. And you guessed it, Ted Williams is that answer.

Let’s show you why. It starts with …

On-base IQ at a young age

Juan Soto has a career .419 on-base percentage over seven seasons. (Luke Hales / Getty Images)

In the history of this sport, only two hitters have ever had a walk rate above 18 percent through their age-25 seasons (with at least 2,500 plate appearances). Guess who?

Ted Williams — 18.9 percent
Juan Soto — 18.8 percent

(Source: Baseball Reference)

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Or we could look at the full array of on-base skills. To do that, let’s use a metric from Baseball Reference called OBP+ — which takes on-base percentage and adjusts it to the context of a player’s hitting environment in his era. Here’s that leaderboard through age 25:

Ted Williams — 137
Juan Soto — 131

In other words, the only two young hitters who were on-base machines at a rate that was at least 30 percent better than league average were … Williams and Soto. (Next on that list: Ty Cobb and Shoeless Joe Jackson, tied at 129.)

Or we could just consider the early-career narratives of these two guys — minus the part where Williams went off to war at age 24 and became a war-hero fighter pilot.

Before he turned 26, Williams led his league in walks twice and OBP three times, despite missing two seasons during that span in the service. Since then, only one left-handed hitter has led his league in both of those departments at least twice by age 25. Hmmm, who might that be?

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Juan Soto would be a great guess.

There’s more, of course. But what do you think? Are we authorized to go on? Do we at least have the go-ahead to mention Soto and Williams in the same breath? We asked Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo for permission to do so this week, since he’s a history lover and once coached in Boston. In retrospect, he might not have been the right choice.

“I mean, Ted Williams?” Lovullo said. “My dad taught me everything about Ted Williams. That’s a tough one for me. He’s probably the greatest hitter of all time.”

So Lovullo wasn’t ready to apply that Ted Williams stamp of approval. But once he got that out of the way, Lovullo began painting the portrait of what he does see in Soto, from the perspective of a manager who has been trying to figure out how to contain him since Soto arrived in the big leagues.

“The first time I saw him, he was 20 years old,” Lovullo said. “I could not believe he was 20 years old. He carried himself like he was 30, like he had been around the league for a long time.”

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And Lovullo means that in a way that explains why the free-agent bidding for Soto reached another orbit this winter.

“I think Soto is on a different level than the rest of the league at times,” he said. “I mean, 41 home runs, the OPS, the numbers that he has, are not lucky. It’s because he has an incredible ability to impact the baseball, and he understands what each at-bat is asking for.”

He understands what each at-bat is asking for.

With those words, Lovullo is telling us this is not a hitter who is prepared for each at-bat in the sense that he knows the pitcher has a fastball, sweeper and cutter in his arsenal. This is a hitter who prepares on “a different level.”

Kind of like a modern-day Ted Williams. That, you see, is because they both had the unique ability to see …

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The hidden part of the game

Nationals manager Davey Martinez and Juan Soto, after he won the Home Run Derby in 2022. (Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images)

Davey Martinez was the first manager of Juan Soto’s big-league life, for five spectacular seasons in Washington. Now that Soto is back in the NL East, Martinez will get to manage against him in four series a year. He’s not looking forward to that part — but he never gets tired of watching Juan Soto, bat artist.

“Like I’ve always said,” Martinez told us, “this guy, for as young as he is — and he’s still young — he understands the hidden part of the game better than anybody I know. He really does.”

Again, we stop to point out the terminology these managers use to describe a guy who two months ago turned 26 — meaning he’s younger than the likes of Josh Jung or Spencer Horwitz or Josh Lowe. It’s not: He understands the strike zone. It’s: He understands the hidden part of the game.

And by that, Martinez said, he means: “He has a plan every pitch. Not just every at-bat but every pitch. He has a plan of what he wants to do, and you can see it.”

Rockies manager Bud Black can also see it. And he, too, described The Juan Soto At-Bat in ways that are never used to describe anyone else’s at-bats.

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“When you use the words, plate discipline, that encompasses a lot of things,” Black said. “But for me, it’s how he conducts the at-bat, where it’s patience, but yet, you sense that he’s ready to hit. It’s sort of an instinctual thing. It’s an intangible that I think pitchers feel, and catchers feel. And the opposing manager. And the opposing pitching coach.

“There’s just something about the at-bat when it’s him up there. It doesn’t matter, it’s the same, whether it’s 7:05 (p.m.), hitting in the first inning, or at 9:30, hitting in the ninth. There’s not a difference in the quality of the at-bat.”

Like Lovullo and Martinez, Black is describing a hitter whose level of focus — on every pitch of every at-bat, of every inning, of every game, of every season — is just different. So what happens when the eye, the brain, the plan, the focus and the extraordinary bat-to-ball skills seem to be always working in sync?

You get Juan Soto … or Ted Williams.

Consider these quotes. They come from the Splendid Splinter. They could easily be his review of Juan Soto.

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“Baseball is 50 percent from the neck up.”

“Think. Don’t just swing. Think about the pitcher — what he threw you last time up, his best pitch, who’s up next. Think.”

Sound familiar? If you’ve paid any attention when Soto is working his batter’s-box magic, it’s almost as if he’s a hitting robot, programmed by Ted Williams himself.

Said Martinez: “I tell our pitchers all the time: When you’re facing him, you need to know he’s smart. He knows what he wants to do. So if he takes a fastball, he’s looking for something. Don’t think you’re going to sneak something by him, because he’s smart. So you’ve got to be smart.”

But really, there’s more — because the Soto/Williams comparisons don’t end with this singular combination of patience, prep and focus. There’s also …

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The power play

John Schneider also dreamed the Juan Soto dream. He is the manager of the Blue Jays, a team that pursued Soto all the way to the finish line. He had no trouble explaining exactly what they hoped they’d be buying.

“He’s a unique blend of plate discipline and power,” Schneider said. “I mean, you do not like facing it when you’re an opposing team.”

Plate discipline and power. When you combine them, and then apply them to all the young hitters in history, it once again connects the same two names: Ted Williams and Juan Soto.

Walk percentage and home run percentage through age 25

HITTER	BB PCT	HR PCT	BB+HR PCT
Ted Williams	18.9% Advertisement	4.9%	23.8%
Juan Soto	18.8%	4.9%  Advertisement	23.7%

(Source: Baseball Reference; minimum 2,500 plate appearances)

So there it is. There is patience. There is power. There is focus. There is damage. And there is one more thing.

The flair

It’s no secret that Ted Williams did everything — on the field, off the field — with an attitude. But Juan Soto has more than just an attitude. He has The Shuffle.

.@JuanSoto25_ does the shuffle to pump himself up. Looks like it works.

📰: https://t.co/c2QKA4hpjl pic.twitter.com/8HJvoTO3ZZ

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— MLB (@MLB) March 27, 2021

Don’t feel as if you have to take a four-minute break from this piece to watch the full, epic Soto at-bat against Hunter Gaddis in Cleveland this October. But if you do, you’ll see something that makes up the full Juan Soto Experience.

The whole Juan Soto at-bat vs. Hunter Gaddis. An artist at work. Just fouling off pitches until he got a fastball.

Then he sent the Yankees to the World Series. pic.twitter.com/2C6lSIpD45

— Jeff Eisenband (@JeffEisenband) October 20, 2024

It isn’t merely that he knows what you’re trying to do to him on every pitch. He’s also going to tell you about it after every pitch … and demonstrate it, via some version of the Soto Shuffle. There is honestly nothing like this going on anywhere else in his sport.

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“For me, it’s his way of keeping engaged,” Martinez said. “It really is. That’s how he gets back in the box and gets engaged.”

And it brings Martinez back to his favorite Soto story ever. It happened in a 2019 game at Citi Field, when Marcus Stroman, then a Met, struck out Soto in the first inning, then did an imitation of The Shuffle.

“So he comes back (to the dugout), and I said, ‘Did you see what he just did?’” Martinez reminisced. “And he said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got him.” Very next at-bat. He hit one a mile — and he kind of looked at Stroman like, ‘Don’t do that again.’”

Was there a Ted Williams Shuffle? Not that we know of. But there was a Ted Williams edge. And it is an unmistakable part of the Soto-Williams connection. Don’t take our word for it. Take the word of Charlie Manuel, former manager of the Phillies and a guy who played against Ted Williams early in his career.

“He’s kind of a flamboyant player,” Manuel said of Soto in 2021. “He’s very interesting. He calls attention to you with his talent. … At the same time, he’s cocky. But to me, it comes in a good way. You know, Ted Williams was very cocky, too.”

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But you know what else Ted Williams was? A guy who played in the big leagues until he was 41. So it’s worth asking:

Where does Juan Soto go from here? 

If Juan Soto ages well, he should put up some prodigious numbers. (Cole Burston / Getty Images)

Since he’s now under contract until the year 2040, it’s worth asking: Do hitters with Juan Soto’s skill set tend to age well?

“Oh yeah, I think so,” Schneider said. “You’re only as good as what you swing at, right? And he’s pretty darned good at that.”

The truth is, history shows us he’s right. As far back as 2012, Bill Petti and Jeff Zimmerman of FanGraphs studied this very concept. They found something we should take note of — that almost no skill has tended to age better through the years than plate discipline.

Guess who looms as the ultimate example of that? Right you are. Ted Williams.

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Even though he left baseball to head off to war two times, Williams returned — first at age 27, then at age 34 — as nearly exactly the same hitter he was before.

Take a look at his walk and home run rates through the years — since those are the rates that most resemble the profile of the young Juan Soto — and ponder whether they lay out a blueprint for what Soto might become.

AGE	BB PCT	HR PCT	BB+HR PCT
Through 25	18.9%	4.9% Advertisement	23.8%
26-30	22.2%	5.0%	27.2% Advertisement
31-35	22.0%	5.8%	27.8%
36-41     Advertisement	19.9%	5.7%	25.6%

(Source: Baseball Reference)

You’ll notice that Williams played until exactly the same age as when Soto’s Mets contract expires — at 41. If Soto ages with even remotely similar rates … um, wow.

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After his age-25 season, Williams added 394 home runs and 1,526 walks. If Soto ages like Williams, he’ll be somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 career homers and 2,300 career walks by the year 2040. And how many players in history have ever reached those two plateaus? Just one.

Barry Bonds.

So is that what’s out there for Soto with the Mets? Sorry. We forgot to pack our crystal balls for the Winter Meetings. But with a hitter this gifted — and this different — can we rule anything out?

“I don’t know what he’s going to do when he’s 40,” said Martinez. “But I know what he’s going to do come Opening Day.”

Hey, don’t we all. Power. Patience. And $765 million worth of Soto Shuffles — and the best Ted Williams imitation on Earth.

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(Top image: Meech Robinson / The Athletic. Photos: Williams swinging: Diamond Images / Getty Images; Williams close-up: Getty Images; Soto close-up: Kyle Rivas / Getty Images; Soto swinging: Mitchell Layton / Getty Images)