Padres' Offensive Woes Have Brought Forth A Damning Question: Does San Diego Actually Have a Plan at the Plate?

The San Diego Padres remain a fascinating case study of team success. They continue to sit within striking distance of the Los Angeles Dodgers atop the National League West and are still ahead of the field in the standings for the National League wild card. That continued success has not come remotely due to their offense, however. It's come in spite of it. 

The Padres remain near the bottom of the league in run production, ranking 27th in runs scored. They're last in team batting average (.218), last in team on-base percentage (.291), and 28th in their collective wRC+ (88). While they're closer to the middle of the pack in their power production (.143 ISO), they continue to be a downtrodden team in matters of scoring runs. The prolonged struggle of their three most essential hitters — Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill — remains a problem of the highest order, with no particular end in sight. 

Throughout this continued struggle, there is one idea we've heard repeated. It's come from manager Craig Stammen, hitting coach Steven Souza Jr, and a handful of players: information. The hitters have all of the information they need. Each of Machado and Nick Castellanos have noted as much. The Padres have what they need, they just need to execute. The vision of what they need, however, is a fairly murky picture. Especially when you compare results and underlying trends to what Souza Jr noted ahead of the season:

“What I am going to try and bring is controlling the zone, hammering mistakes, being able to make the pitcher do something different out there. Because when these guys put the ball on the barrel, it’s hit hard and goes a long way, typically.”

Souza's quote is, of course, coach-speak, and you're not going to expect to see a coach divulge his plan for hitters in hopes of maintaining a competitive advantage. At the same time, when you have a team struggling as badly as the Padres are, even an outsider begins to wonder just how much there is to this whole operation beyond "hitting hard and watching it go a long way."

Because the trends aren't lending themselves to much more than an abstract philosophy to this point in the season. 

The Padres are certainly swinging harder:

After sitting near the bottom of the league in average bat speed, the team is much closer to the top of the league here in 2026. And while there's been some change in personnel, there hasn't been quite enough turnover to indicate anything other than this being due to the change in philosophy. The Padres are swinging harder by design. However, there's also an inefficiency to it. The only team making less squared-up contact in the entire league is the Los Angeles Angels. That's not particularly a team you want to be in league with on really any front. 

What is clear is that this increase in swing speed is coming at the expense of their ability to make contact. That relationship exists on its own, but there's also an approach factor here. 

Despite a collective swing rate that ranks fifth in the league (49.6 percent), the Padres rank just 19th in Contact% (75.8). They're chasing at the league's third-highest rate as well (70.6 percent) and whiffing at the fourth-highest (12.0 percent). There's an impatience manifesting here, and when you combine that with the inefficiency wrought by overly aggressive swings, you get a relatively punchless team at the plate. 

The mess in the approach is also reflected in the team's run value. Run value is considered in relation to four zones around the plate: heart, shadow, chase, and waste. The trends of the Padres regulars in each of these zones is also indicative of some fairly serious problems: 

The heart of the zone is where hitters should be doing the most damage. Yet, only Gavin Sheets & Nick Castellanos have a positive run value in the portion of the zone where run production should be simplest. If a pitcher puts something in the heart of the zone, that's your opportunity as a hitter. This is perhaps the most damning evidence of the Padre offensive plan thus far in 2026. They're also not handling the edges well, with only Miguel Andujar working that portion effectively, with only the portions outside of the zone — where value is derived from not swinging the baseball bat — proving to be a consistent source of positivity for this group. 

Again, we don't know what information is being exchanged between coaches and hitters and everybody in between. However, there's clearly an issue here rooted somewhere in the philosophy of the new staff. The approaches are questionable and compounding with harder swings to render the offense as ineffective as any in the sport. It's a problem with no end in sight, and the abstract quality of it all makes it especially concerning for a team trying to remain in contention.