Padres Playoff Trustworthy Scale: Hitter Edition

As of this writing, the San Diego Padres have yet to clinch a playoff spot. However, with their magic number to do so sitting at just one, it would be an entirely unthinkable collapse for it not to happen somewhere over the course of the next six games, which means that we can begin the process of projecting what things will look like when October officially gets underway. 

Standing with the end of the 2025 season in the clearest of views, one doesn't need to strain their vision to understand where the Padres have found their success this season. Among their major league counterparts, the team sits third in ERA (3.69), fourth in strikeout rate (23.9 percent), and has limited damaging home runs to the tune of the league's 10th-best homer-to-flyball ratio (11.0 percent). It gets even rosier when one looks through reliever-colored glasses; the team's 7.2 fWAR, 3.08 ERA, and 3.56 FIP are all tops in the league. Their strikeout rate (25.6 percent) also ranks fourth, and the HR/FB rate drops on that side of things to 9.1 percent (fifth).

This is all to say that the Padres are where they are largely because of their arms. The depth has been tested, and there's been some need for some patchwork out of the starting gate. The pitching, though, has been the most consistent element of a team that has been anything but. It's that component that has the Padres standing on the verge of their fourth postseason appearance in the last six years. 

But, if the Padres are to make any noise in October, it's going to require something from their offense that they haven't gotten all year: consistency. 

It's not that the team is "bad" on that side of the ball. They simply haven't been able to gain traction for longer than a short stretch at a time. It exacerbates the impact of those periods where the team isn't so hot with the stick. Overall, they rank 13th in collective wRC+ (102) while checking in with the league's seventh-highest batting average (.252) and ninth-best on-base percentage (.321). They don't walk much -- an 8.3 percent walk rate sits only 17th -- but they don't strike out either, with the third-best K% in baseball (19.0). Where concern lies, however, is in their ability to generate consistent power. 

As a team, the Padres rank 28th in the league in ISO (.136). The only teams that sit behind them are the St. Louis Cardinals (.133) and the Pittsburgh Pirates (.118). Neither is the company you'd necessarily want to keep this year. Nor would you want to be behind the likes of the Washington Nationals (.143) or Chicago White Sox (.140). Nevertheless, that's where the team sits heading into the final week of play. 

To succeed in the postseason, you need impact. The ball doesn't necessarily need to find its way over the fence at every opportunity, but staffs get shorter and pitching, consequently, gets better in the postseason. You need hitters capable of breaking through the upper-tier mound work you're sure to face on the biggest stage in the sport.

The 2023 ALCS featured two of the top eight ISO teams in baseball, in Texas (.190) and Houston (.178). The other side of the bracket saw the Philadelphia Phillies and their sixth-ranked ISO (.182) against the Arizona Diamondbacks (.158). While the latter team's figure sat only 19th in the regular season, it was still several shades better than this year's Padres. That trend continued last year when three of the final four teams -- the Los Angeles Dodgers (.189), New York Yankees (.181), and New York Mets (.169) -- sat in the top seven. Similar to Arizona the previous season, the Cleveland Guardians didn't rank highly but still sat a ways ahead of the '25 Friars in the ISO game (.157). 

On paper, the 2025 San Diego Padres are not any of those teams. They're not even the outliers. This is a team that has been quite good at the plate, but only at times. They're largely inefficient in matters of run production. So, when we consider all of that, is there anyone trustworthy enough to deliver when that impact is needed in the most meaningful games the team will play all year? 

The most efficient way to determine which Padres could bear some sort of positive impact on the postseason impact provided by the offense is with a scale. That's why we've elected to create the "Padres Playoff Trustworthy Scale." The premise is such: consider a player's ISO in conjunction with their hard hit rate in conjunction with their contact rate in conjunction with their walk rate. And that's kind of it. It's less a scale and more a jumbled mess of a way to determine how we feel about a player as the postseason draws closer.

From there, we can sort them into tiers. For the purpose of this exercise, those tiers will be: for sure trustworthy, maybe trustworthy, probably not trustworthy, and certainly not trustworthy. There are no points for creativity here; above all, this is meant to take the temperature of where a player stands at a given point in time. In short, we're using a statistical basis to capture a vibe around a player's ability to produce. The contact and walk rates are indicative of a player's approach, while the hard-hit and ISO figures are designed to utilize that approach in a production-based manner. There's a great, big oversimplification to all of this, but with the calendar in late September, we've passed the point of trying to figure out who a player is. We know by now.

With that, let's see who figures to be a player the team can rely on and who exists on the other end of the spectrum for the 2025 postseason, presented in reverse order. 

Tier 4: Certainly Not Trustworthy

Luis Arráez

• ISO: .097
• Hard-Hit%: 16.1
• Contact%: 96.0
• BB%: 4.9

The Bench (Jose Iglesias, Bryce Johnson)

• ISO: .079
• Hard-Hit%: 29.0
• Contact%: 78.1
• BB%: 5.75

The name of the game in the postseason is impact, and it's hard to envision it coming to fruition from this trio. Arráez can hit his way on base, but we've also seen stretches where that aggression at the plate is a massive inhibitor to him reaching base with any regularity. An absurd volume contact is nice, but there's also something to be said about trading some of it off in exchange for a bit of exit velocity. Even if he's able to get into one of his hot stretches, the actual impact contact off the bat remains stifled by his overall skill set. Which is to say nothing of the fact that Iglesias' value is derived almost entirely from his versatility, and Johnson's wRC+ in part-time action in the last two seasons prior to '25 was under 50. Given that Elías Díaz has been relegated to No. 2 duties behind the plate and has a 43 wRC+ in September, we're not considering him a factor outside of serving as a late-game substitute.

Tier 3: Probably Not Trustworthy

Ryan O'Hearn

• ISO: .099
• Hard-Hit%: 28.0
• Contact%: 77.7
• BB%: 8.2

Freddy Fermin

• ISO: .109
• Hard-Hit%: 37.9
• Contact%: 77.8
• BB%: 4.1

Two of the Padres' deadline acquisitions on the positional side, Fermin has flashed a couple of hot stretches at either end of his arrival in San Diego. He's at a 124 wRC+ across his 43 plate appearances thus far in September, so we know there's a bit of offensive upside in the tank. At the same time, the Padres acquired him more on the strength of his glove work than anything else. So, while getting a bit of impact out of the bat would be a nice surprise, it would also be foolhardy to expect it. 

O'Hearn, on the other hand, is a bit of a disappointment in this regard. While he's never hit for the power that his frame and position might indicate, he's been a steadily above-average bat for the last three years in Baltimore. That hasn't been the case in San Diego, however. There has been some mechanical variance, and he's been whiffing heavily, both inside and out of the strike zone. If there was any sustainable performance that was indicative of a breakout being near, we might have a little more faith. But, even with some underlying trends that are showcasing better contact, the results haven't been there for us to believe that he'll be booming in the postseason.

Tier 2: Maybe Trustworthy

Ramón Laureano

• ISO: .226
• Hard-Hit%: 50.8
• Contact%: 75.6
• BB%: 6.3

Jake Cronenworth

• ISO: .136
• Hard-Hit%: 38.2
• Contact%: 83.7
• BB%: 13.3

Xander Bogaerts

• ISO: .125
• Hard-Hit%: 38.8
• Contact%: 80.2
• BB%: 9.0

Gavin Sheets

• ISO: .186
• Hard-Hit%: 46.3
• Contact%: 78.2
• BB%: 8.1 

The Tier 2 group in the Trustworthy Scale is perhaps the most tantalizing one, considering where the upside could fall in October play. 

Laureano has essentially been the team's most consistent bat since his arrival at the trade deadline. Sheets looks like an entirely new player who took advantage of another Jackson Merrill injury to work his way back into the lineup after disappearing post-July 31. There are some swing and contact trends that are highly encouraging. Cronenworth has a keen enough approach that he's liable to demonstrate impact at any turn. Bogaerts may not be the one who's going to give you that late-game home run, but he's the one who's going to give your team a chance with a double that brings you within one. 

And that's why this group is No. 2. Any of them could pop at a given moment. There's legitimate upside across each name. However, it's also a group more likely to serve as the springboard rather than the actual driver of offensive success. If one of our Tier 1 names comes up, it feels likely you'll see one of them on base in a crucial moment. However, there shouldn't be an expectation of impact, considering the relatively low ISO figures and lower production in September for Laureano compared to August. It just wouldn't be a surprise if it did happen.

Tier 1: For Sure Trustworthy

Manny Machado

• ISO: .185
• Hard-Hit%: 51.1
• Contact%: 76.1
• BB%: 8.0

Fernando Tatis, Jr.

• ISO: .171
• Hard-Hit%: 52.1
• Contact%: 75.2
• BB%: 12.9

Jackson Merrill

• ISO: .191
• Hard-Hit%: 42.4
• Contact%: 75.5
• BB%: 6.7

Machado is in this portion of the list largely as a courtesy; superstars do superstar things when their team needs them. The narrative loves his chances to pop in October, even if his 74 wRC+ in September doesn't. We've seen Machado at his best this year, so if he can recapture any semblance of the hitter he was in either May or July, the Padres will be cooking.

In the interim, we'll take our chances in instilling trust in each of Tatis Jr. & Merrill. After a torrid start to the year, Tatis struggled to find traction anywhere that wasn't with his glove. Whether it was a health factor or a mechanical struggle, it's clear that it's an issue behind Tatis. His September numbers include a .205 ISO that stands as his best mark since April. Merrill, meanwhile, has had a handful of freak injuries that stalled his production for much of the year. But he's put his barrel to work in recent weeks and looks far closer to the hitter we saw in 2024 than at any point earlier this season.

When it comes down to it, you've got to be able to trust your stars. If you don't have that, you're left with, well, the other guys.