Can Padres Say Manny Machado's Power-Heavy Season Has Been A Success?

[Randy Holt]

As the San Diego Padres struggled to get their offense going early in the year, attention turned toward their three core bats: Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, and Manny Machado. In the months that followed, Tatis has reemerged as a superstar while Merrill has largely figured out his end of the offensive bargain as well. That just leaves one outlier among the marquee trio: Machado. 

Throughout the season, the veteran's power numbers have been almost exactly what they've been over the last handful of seasons. As of this writing, he's at 28 home runs after posting totals of 30, 29, and 27 in the three preceding years, respectively. His isolated power figure sits at .190 after .204, .197, and .185 over that same three-year stretch. 

Yet, this particular season in 2026 is one wherein Machado has struggled to barely scratch above average in matters of wRC+. He sits at a perfectly average 100 despite that power output and features the same number in OPS+. Which means that, regardless of your tool of choice, the 34-year-old has been roughly average despite serving as one of the team's three-most important hitters in a year in which they're chasing down a Wild Card spot in the National League. 

It'd be easy to say that Machado has simply run into some bad luck. After all, he's walking more than ever (11.6 percent) and has a bat speed figure (74.7 MPH) that ranks in the 80th percentile (comfortably above the 72.7 MPH average). Perhaps we could just pin his .219/.308/.409 line on a .233 batting average on balls in play and hope that the chips fall in his favor again in 2027. Except that wouldn't tell the whole story. 

Despite the impressive power, decent approach, and sustained bat speed, Machado's quality of contact has waned. His barrel rate (10.0 percent) is roughly three points below his 2025 clip, while his 44.3 percent rate of hard contact is more than seven points below the number he posted last year. 

Worse yet for Machado, his .248 expected batting average isn't a far cry higher than where he's actually landing on the stat sheet this year. So, while there's certainly been an element of luck actively working against him, it's not so severe that we can chalk it up to only that. A quick glimpse at his approach and swing trends indicate that he's not experiencing the same level of success against pitch types other than fastballs: 

The overall hard-hit rate is down across the board, but Machado's work against off-speed and breaking pitches (in matters of hard contact) has plummeted. He's actually swinging at fewer of each type and chasing roughly the same as he has in the last few seasons. It's possible that there's something mechanical at play that's dragging down his ability to create quality contact against those pitch types, but it's not as if the same trend has played out against fastballs—it's just not as severe. In any case, that's a separate conversation. 

Our question here is whether we can deem Manny Machado's 2026 season to be a success on the merits of his power alone. If there's a saving grace here, it's that Machado's ISO doesn't dissipate in situations that would be deemed clutch. His ISO with the bases empty is .187 and rises to .206 with runners on and .192 with runners in scoring position. The power has played regardless of the situation. 

At the same time, when you're looking at a number of trends that are actively working downward—for a player who already possessed questions about his confrontation with the aging curve—it would be really difficult to justify calling this campaign anything but a disappointing one. That the power has been there is a nice reprieve, but given how much the Padres have battled injury and downtrodden performance from elsewhere on their roster, they needed all three of their marquee names to serve the offense in an all-around capacity.

The fact that Machado hasn't done that would make it rather misguided to call it anything but a down year.

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