Is This The End for Jason Heyward?

[Randy Holt]

In spite of themselves, the San Diego Padres keep on winning. 

A top heavy lineup from the jump, ravaged by injuries and comprised of fringe Major League talent on the margins, keeps doing it. But while they've managed to survive with the strategy of loading up the bench with non-roster invites from back in spring training, they've also shown they have limits. 

Yuli Gurriel didn't hit. He was given 40 plate appearances to prove his meddle as a bench piece, with injuries ahead of him manifesting opportunities. He could only muster a wRC+ of 5, though, and was unceremoniously designated for assignment before later electing free agency. The team isn't quite at that point with Jason Heyward. But it's not that far off. 

Heyward missed his share of time last month with knee inflammation. But on either end of that short stay on the Injured List, it hasn't been terrific. His slash includes an average of just .196, an OBP of .250, and not a lot happening elsewhere to compensate. His walk rate is running under eight percent while his isolated slugging comes in at just .089. His wRC+ is just 51, indicative of a player 49 percent worse than league average. Of the 307 players with at least 60 PA this year, he's the 24th worst by wRC+.

It's not like there's some saving grace in the underlying data, either. 

Heyward doesn't have enough playing time to qualify or register for percentile ranks on Baseball Savant, but pretty much everything would be lingering around the bottom if he did. His chase rate (35.0 percent) is at the highest point of his career while his contact rate sits as one of his worst (76.1). His Hard-Hit% is 28.3. Even for a hitter not known for impact outcomes at the plate, that latter figure is the lowest rate of his career. Considering that most of his work has come against right-handed pitching within a platoon, breaking down splits becomes irrelevant at that point.

The bat speed is down, too. After declining slightly between 2023 & 2024, it's down even more (71.9 MPH average) in '25. His rate of fast swings, at 16.7 percent, has fallen by more than 10 percent. This, while his swing has gotten longer. 

Some of this you could survive if Heyward was the defender he once was. But he's been slightly below average by Fielding Run Value (-1). His outfield jump is also at a career-low. It's a small sample, but he's also never posted a below average figure in either regard. Brandon Lockridge, meanwhile, is posting above average defensive figures (3 FRV). 

Which brings us to sort of the central problem with Jason Heyward. The Heyward-Lockridge combination was deemed the platoon in left field at the season's outset. It wasn't an entirely encouraging situation on the offensive side, but given limited financing the team was willing to invest in their roster construction, it was the situation nonetheless. At this point, Lockridge is playing himself into more time while Heyward is playing himself out of it. 

Lockridge is offering better defense and, interestingly, faring better against righties than his platoon partner in Heyward (the former's shortcomings against left-handed pitching is a topic for another day). You're not squeezing a lot of offense out of either case, but that Lockridge is providing more value in Heyward's role than Heyward could spell some eventual doom as far as Heyward's roster status is concerned. 

There are unquantifiable elements here. Heyward is as respected a veteran as exists in baseball. Helping the team to stay the course in the clubhouse in the midst of such a high volume of injuries is likely a consideration on some level. But even that gets harder to ignore in the face of the quantifiable. 

Not that we have any reason to suspect Heyward's roster spot is in immediate danger. The lack of depth still exists. You can't get rid of a depth piece when depth wasn't a factor to begin with. In the interim, our more immediate point is that Heyward's bat is broken. His defense no longer compensates. 

With the Padres starting to get healthy, you can work a little more toward mitigating some of those negative effects. But the reality is that this is a player that cannot, and should not, be relied upon for a team with developing championship aspirations.

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