Mets baserunning guru Antoan Richardson has transformed the way the club takes an extra base

Antoan Richardson is ignoring Juan Soto.

The Mets’ first-base coach and baserunning strategist is in the hallway of the visiting clubhouse at Petco Park talking to a reporter, and Soto impishly is trying to get him to break character.

What’s the key to the relationship he fosters with players — the one that has those same players routinely heaping praise on a man whose role doesn’t usually get the same recognition as, say, a pitching coach?

“I think . . . ,’’ Richardson begins.

“Is that your meeting?” Soto asks, the picture of innocence.

“ . . . the first part,” Richardson continues, ignoring him.

“I think he’s talking to you,” intones team travel manager Edgar Suero.

“Excuse me, is that your meeting?” Soto asks again.

“Yes,” Richardson replies, not making eye contact.

“Oh, all right,” Soto answers.

“Sit down,” Richardson tells Soto before finishing his thought.

“ . . . I think the first part is just listening [to them].”

It’s an exquisitely playful interaction, borne of familiarity and affection, and the two play their parts perfectly. Soto still is only 26 years old, and it’s essentially his job to sass his elders. Richardson is 41 and a baseball lifer, and it’s his job to treat Soto as if he isn’t, in fact, the owner of the biggest contract in North American sports history.

It’s also a sliver of what’s made Richardson so effective.

In the last season and a half, Richardson’s name has tended to pop up all over the Mets’ landscape, sort of like a Flushing Forrest Gump.

When Luisangel Acuna was learning to play centerfield, Richardson was there. When Francisco Lindor was stealing bases on a newly broken toe, Richardson was there. And when Soto nearly got himself ejected in San Diego on a very questionable strike-three call, Richardson was there . . . literally. He ran all the way from the first-base box to talk Soto down.

His most tangible impact, though, seems to be the base-stealing. It’s also been one of the few bright spots in a nightmarish two-month stretch in which the Mets (64-57) have gone 19-33 since June 13, a .365 winning percentage.

For a team that’s routinely languished in offensive malaise, the basepaths have been an unlikely, if often insufficient, salve.

The Mets have stolen 36 straight bases, the longest active streak in the major leagues, including 2-for-2 in their 4-3 loss to Atlanta on Thursday night. Their 90.5% success rate is the highest in baseball and would be the highest in MLB history if it sticks.

Mind you, they don’t steal a ton — their total of 95 stolen bases (in 105 tries) is tied for 10th — but when they do, they don’t miss.

Some of that isn’t surprising: Rule changes in 2023, which included limiting the number of pickoff attempts and increasing base sizes, made stealing easier. But it’s more than that because, it turns out, the Mets are really slow — even more so now that their fastest player, Acuna, is in the minors.

Their 27-foot-per-second sprint speed is fourth-worst in baseball. Their overall baserunning isn’t particularly good — responsible for two runs below average, according to Baseball Savant — but entering Thursday, their stolen bases accounted for 10 runs above average. They ranked third overall in baserunning runs, behind only the Brewers and Diamondbacks.

Baserunning runs measure runs created (or lost) via stolen bases and/or taking an extra base, according to Baseball Savant.

Soto’s 19 stolen bases already are a career high, and Brandon Nimmo, who’s fast enough but never seemed to quite have a knack for the skill, is up to 12 this year.

“It’s his preparation — his preparation for every game, every pitcher is like nothing I’ve ever seen,” Nimmo told Newsday, referring to Richardson. “He’s a really good communicator and he’s able to be really personable with a lot of different types of personalities. He’s able to connect with you on whatever level you’re at and then he’s able to relay that information in a very simple way so it makes it easy for you to translate that into the game.”

You can see it in the way that Soto approaches base-stealing. His sprint speed is in the 16th percentile in baseball, but his game IQ is considered among the best in the game. His leads from first seem downright lackadaisical — almost a stroll — and they get larger as the pitcher comes to the set. Once the pitcher commits, it’s too late to get Soto, who usually doesn’t even have to slide.

That approach, though, takes buy-in and trust. And it’s clear that Soto and the players around Richardson buy in.

“They’ve got a really good relationship where the players are trusting the information from the coach and [Soto] is going out there and executing it,” Carlos Mendoza said. “His ability to communicate, build relationships and earn the trust of the players is what makes him who he is — a really good person, a special person, a coach that cares a lot. And it’s not only with Antoan — our coaches, I want to say I’ve been blessed to be surrounded with a lot of different people with really good mindsets who care about players, and Antoan continues to show that.”

Richardson has 22 major-league games to his name. He was picked in the 35th round of the 2005 draft and has an engineering science degree from Vanderbilt.

He went 7-for-20 in two seasons for Atlanta and the Yankees and is best known for scoring the winning run on Derek Jeter’s walk-off single in the final home game of his career. (Nice headfirst slide, too.)

Of his playing career, he notes, “I was terrible. At no point was I ever good.”

But of the approximately 10% of drafted players who make it to The Show, he was one of them, for however brief a time. And that, too, is a key in all this.

“It comes back to better understanding what I was and ‘how do I maximize the tools and skill set that I have?’ ” he said. “So similarly, when [I see] Juan Soto, Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor, Luisangel Acuna, it’s like, what’s the skill set from their perspective? And then what’s the skill set from the perspective of our staff, and now we’re blending that together and trying to make sure there’s a good understanding of what we can accomplish and then attempt to make it happen.”

It’s a long process, and Richardson is very far from a one-man show. It starts with the medical staff, which analyzes what players are physically capable of doing, moves on to the performance staff, whose job it is to figure out how to best maximize inherent skills, and then to the analytics staff to determine when and how to best deploy that information, Richardson said.

And then there’s Richardson himself, who Nimmo said spends hours poring over information, watching video and studying tendencies. Then he uses that to help his players weave something else altogether.

“I truly believe it’s an art,” Richardson said of base-stealing. “There’s talent involved, but how do you make it a masterpiece? I think when we’re out there, we want to be creative. We want to be Picasso and try to throw something on the wall where it’s like, a little different, but it’s still sexy, right? We look at it as an art form and we try to craft that.”

There’s that amalgamation again: It’s science, but it’s art. It’s information, but it’s only useful with the correct type of communication. And then it’s getting people to listen.

It’s then that Richardson turns to a patiently waiting Soto.

“Why do you trust me?” he asks Soto.

“Why do I trust you?” repeats Soto. “I think we’re just dumb,” he deadpans, a smirk threatening to take over his face.

Richardson ignores him again.

“I think they buy in because I come in with these crazy ideas and they’re like, either you’re really stupid or you’re really smart, and I want to prove you stupid, so I try it anyway.”

Soto remains off to the side, still trying to keep a straight face. A day earlier, he fouled a ball off his left foot and he’s being held out of the lineup, but the next day, on that same foot, he steals another base.