Why the San Diego Padres offense is struggling

Top-heavy lineup

The San Diego Padres offense is powered by a few fantastic hitters and dragged down by several sub-par players.

The heavy hitters are obvious — Eric Hosmer is slashing .282/.333/.442 while Manny Machado is hitting .277/.347/.511.

Fernando Tatis Jr. boasts a stat line of .329/.391/.601 and will probably take over the Padres leaderboard after another month of plate appearances.

The drop off after that is pretty steep.

For those with more than 300 plate appearances, Franmil Reyes was next in line with a .255/.314/.536 slash line. He was also responsible for 16.5% of the team’s home runs, tied for 10th in the MLB with 27 long balls.

Surprisingly, Reyes also led the team in xBA with .273; unsurprisingly, he also led the team with an xwOBA of .374. While his production curbed a bit after the All-Star break, he was a big contributor all season long. As everyone now knows, Reyes was traded to the Cleveland Indians so he’s no longer contributing to the Padres offense.

If we lower the number of plate appearances to 250, Manuel Margot would have the next best line of .246/.321/.385, and that looks like a decent fall from Machado. Overall, Greg Garcia is the best of the rest with a .264 BA, but as a utility player he’s only had 223 plate appearances.

He also has a .329 wOBA, which is 4th best on the team behind Tatis Jr., Machado, and Hunter Renfroe, coupled with a 2.04 K/BB ratio. One has to wonder why he doesn’t start more.

Look, Tatis, Machado, and Hosmer are at the top of the lineup for a reason — put your best players first so they can get more at-bats. However, the rest of the lineup needs to produce if the Padres want get out of this offensive slump. Moving Hosmer to the five-hole might be good for his confidence as well as getting a higher-percentage hitter further down the lineup.

There’s also hope that players like Luis Urías and Wil Myers will pick themselves up and contribute more to getting on base, which could help the heavy hitters drive in more runs consistently.

Finally, it’s the fact the Padres can’t come up big with runners in scoring position, in high-leverage instances, or other clutch situations that brings us to our last point.