For Juan Soto, the home runs and the hype don’t matter. The work does.

“My lifting,” Soto said, smiling, when asked to explain himself this spring. “I’ve been working out a little bit.”

Consider this, though: The homer off Mets reliever Robert Gsellman traveled 466 feet on that August day. Soto says that, before he crushed the inside slider, the plan was to send a line drive up the middle. It seems as if there’s a disconnect between those two facts. But Soto insists that a backyard dream, a real-life moonshot, was just the byproduct of a detailed approach. He’s showing why, at 22 years old, he brings process over result to life.

That may be hard to parse when the results are so good. In 2020, Soto led the majors in on-base-plus-slugging percentage (1.185) and a handful of other advanced statistics. He won the National League batting title with a .351 average. He made 47 games his playground, triggering another winter of hype: Could he get the sport’s first $500 million contract? Is he the next Ted Williams? Can he keep improving?

“It puts too much pressure on a lot of these kids,” Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman said of social media and the rush to make comparisons. “Just to be honest, I don’t think a lot of them can handle it. I think it ruins a lot of their careers. But I’m not saying Juan is like that. I think Juan is an outlier in that he can mentally handle that stuff already.”

And that goes back to Soto valuing the work more than what comes of it. His coaches notice. His teammates notice. Josh Bell joined the Nationals this spring, having spent four years shouldering the Pittsburgh Pirates’ offense. He was used to feeling tense in February and March. But in one morning in West Palm Beach, Fla., he saw Soto spray grounders, then liners, then homers to the left field line, then left field, then left-center, then center, then right-center, then the right field line. Then all over again.

Soto’s batting practice routine is a little legend around the organization. It’s unintentional performance art.

“Just watching Soto hit, I’m like: ‘Okay, we’re good,’ ” Bell remembered thinking. “We’re good to go.”

“It’s just kind of nice to rally around,” catcher Yan Gomes said. “Juan Soto, he doesn’t give up very many at-bats. So guys are going to take in a lot.”

Consider this, then: Bell is 28. Gomes is 33. Zimmerman, forever skeptical of the next big star, is 36 and marveling at Soto, too. This spring training, Soto’s third with the Nationals, Manager Dave Martinez put him in a hitting group with Bell, Kyle Schwarber and the team’s other lefties. He wanted them to watch Soto’s timing, his mechanics, and see what they could pick up. Martinez basically turned the right fielder into a player-coach.

But once the season begins, Soto tries to limit his time on social media. He lives near Nationals Park and will arrive early most days. Kevin Long, the Nationals’ hitting coach, waits with drills designed to freeze Soto in a rhythm. They will spend hours together in the batting tunnel by the home clubhouse. That’s how Soto knocks the distractions aside.

“It’s kind of tough ’cause sometimes I get some people telling me: ‘Hey, you see this? You see that?’ ” Soto said. “I’m like, ‘No I haven’t seen it.’ I want to, but I don’t.”

It was Long who, two years ago, put Soto on a breaking ball machine that fed him hundreds of sliders and curves. Teams thought they had found a way to limit Soto’s production. They were instead met with a counter adjustment that hasn’t been solved.

This offseason, Washington padded the lineup around Soto. They added Bell and Schwarber. They hope Trea Turner will build on a breakout 2020. They know that, realistically, pitchers will do anything they can to avoid Soto’s power. It took him 1,349 plate appearances to earn that kind of respect. After only 313 career games, a lot rests — the Nationals’ offense, their chances this season — on how much Soto thrives.

“You can go back generations and generations to find this type of guy. They’re hard to find,” Long said of Soto in early March. “I think it’s his stubbornness within the zone. He just will not expand the zone. A lot like Barry Bonds was. Barry Bonds took all those walks. There were times Barry didn’t see a strike for 25 straight pitches.

“And all of a sudden, you throw him one strike and he’d wallop it. Is he on the Barry Bonds level yet? No. I understand that. But he’s got that kind of stubbornness when it comes to the strike zone.”

Since he was a kid, Soto has actually liked to walk. He trusts that advancing 90 feet will help his team win. In his last at-bat in Florida, he battled Sixto Sánchez, the Miami Marlins’ future ace, for 11 pitches. He fell behind 0-2 and pushed his helmet down. He fouled off a 93-mph change-up, a 90-mph change-up and a 100-mph fastball and grinned. He then resisted two change-ups, both near his shins, and wiggled his hips from side to side.

This ended with Soto letting ball four go by. But he was so locked in, so set on beating Sánchez, that the umpire had to tell Soto to take his base. Soon after, while sitting in the dugout, Soto yapped about the matchup to Long and Martinez. He later called it his best plate appearance of a slow spring.

It wasn’t a long home run or anything flashy. It was just a necessary step.