Padres: After year of adjustment Manny Machado is set to break out

A look at the averages

Some people in today’s game don’t put a lot of stock in batting average, but don’t count me in that group. If you can hit, your average is going to be good, that’s never changed.

In 2019 Machado put up the lowest batting average of his career hitting .256 with the Padres. It was only the second time since his rookie season in which he had a batting average under .275.

He’s never been a .300 hitter, but I think most expect him to hit between .275-.290 every year.

His OBP of .334 in 2019 is right on mark with his career norms and that’s about where I expect him to be with San Diego — somewhere between .330-.350.

It was only the second time since 2014 that he finished the year with an OPS under .800; although he was really close at .796.

For what San Diego is paying him, I think it’s reasonable to expect him to at least have an .800 OPS every year (at least through his prime years) and probably fall somewhere in the .850-.900 range.

His 108 wRC+ in 2019 was much lower than the 127 wRC+ that he averaged from 2015-2018, so it’s safe to expect that to be much higher going forward.