How the returns of Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth can help take the Padres' offense to the next level

The Padres have already been off to quite a start to the 2025 season. At 23-12, the Padres are winning two-thirds of their games. They have the second-best record in baseball, only half a game behind the rival Dodgers. And yet, it feels like there is still a higher echelon that this team can unlock. It all starts with the return of star center fielder Jackson Merrill. 

Merrill’s return will boost the Padres' lineup 

Despite their hot start, the Padres are far from a perfect offense. In runs scored, the Friars are actually in the bottom half of the league, at 20th place with 140 runs. They have also struggled to hit for power, ranking 24th in MLB with 29 home runs. They have the 15th-highest slugging percentage (.387), and are 12th with a .714 team OPS, hanging right around the edge of the top ten offenses in the league. 

Adding a player like Jackson Merrill into the offense could be just the boost the team needs to elevate the run production to the next level. While it was only 10 games and 37 at-bats, Merrill was the Padres’ best player during the first two weeks of the season before his injury. The second-year outfielder was slashing .378/.415/.676, with a team-best 1.091 OPS. He crushed three home runs, two doubles and ten runs batted in.

Merrill does not have to keep that level of production up to improve the Padres’ offense. If he can just do what he did last year, it would be a massive addition. In 2024 as a rookie, Merrill slashed .292/.326/.500, with 24 home runs, 31 doubles and 90 runs batted in. Currently, the lineup has just two batters with an OPS over .800, and especially with key players like Xander Bogaerts (one home run) and Jose Iglesias (.575 OPS) struggling, it would be nice for the team to get some more consistent output from a guy at the top of their lineup. 

Merrill’s return gives the Padres more flexibility with Lockridge

Merrill coming back to roam center field will also give the Padres a lot more flexibility with how they use Brandon Lockridge. Lockridge, who recently returned from injury himself, has played exclusively in center field since Merrill’s injury. With Merrill back on the field, the Padres can move Merrill back into their planned role for him, in a left-field platoon with Jason Heyward. Or, they could option Lockridge back to Triple-A El Paso to get him more at-bats. He’s struggled at the big league level this year, with a .267 on-base percentage, a .286 slugging percentage, and a 56 OPS+. Lockridge has played good defense, which is why the 28-year-old still has a positive bWAR at 0.3. However, the Padres may look to get his bat going in the minors before bringing him back to the big leagues. 

How Jake Cronenworth can keep the momentum he built before his injury

Before he landed on the injured list, Jake Cronenworth was off to a hot start, with a career-high .409 on-base-percentage and .486 slugging percentage. As he nears his return, let’s take a look at how Cronenworth can keep up his stellar start to the season and continue contributing to the club’s offense. 

Keep hitting the ball hard

One of the factor’s contributing to Cronenworth’s strong start to the year was his average exit velocity. While he has never been a guy who hits the ball very hard, the 31-year-old was averaging a career-best 89.6 miles per hour before his injury. 

He also has the best hard-hit percentage of his career since 2020, at 38.5 percent. That’s two percentage points better than his 36.7 percent mark in 2024, and a major improvement from his low mark of 33.2 percent in 2023. If Cronenworth can come close to a 40 percent hard-hit rate and average a 90 MPH hard-hit rate, he would be on track for some of the best power numbers in his career. 

Keep walking 

Perhaps Cronenworth’s biggest improvement in the early season was his walk rate. With eight walks in 12 games, he was drawing a free pass on 18.2 percent of his at-bats, putting him in the 99th percentile of MLB. While it is highly unlikely that Cronenworth will be able to keep that up, it would be a huge improvement if he could keep his walk rate above 14 percent, or even 12 percent. Cronenworth has walked 9.4 percent of the time in his career, and last year was right around that mark, walking 9.3 percent of the time. He has never cracked an 11 percent walk rate, with his career-high 10.2 percent coming in 2022. 

Keep pulling the ball in the air

If you’ve ever seen Jake Cronenworth play baseball, you know there is only one way he can hit a home run. He’s hit 71 home runs in his career, and not a single one has been hit to the left side of the field. In fact, only a small few could even be considered “right-center.” Nearly all of Cronenworth’s power comes from his ability to pull the baseball. In a very small sample of fly balls he connected with in 2025, he was doing it at an elite level. 

Cronenworth’s PULL AIR%, according to Baseball Savant, is 26.9 percent on the season, by far the best mark of his career. His previous best came in 2023, when he pulled the ball 18.3 percent of the time. His career average is just 16 percent. If Cronenworth can keep pulling the ball more than 20 percent of the time he hits it in the air, the results will show up in the box score. The more power he can unlock from his pull side, the more home runs he will hit, and the more he will be able to contribute to the offense. 

A combination of pulling the ball more, hitting the ball harder, and drawing more walks was what helped Cronenworth get off to his strong start to the season. If he can keep it up, he could be a deadly piece to San Diego's lineup.