Padres bench bat is turning bizarre reverse splits into a real playing-time argument

Miguel Andújar has had a bit of a winding career, but where he’s settled is as a nice bat to have against lefties who can generally hold his own against right-handed pitching. He had a 129 wRC+ against lefties compared to 87 against righties in 2023. In 2024, his wRC+ against lefties was an absurd 192 compared to 82 against righties. Last year, he was almost as absurd against lefties with a 171 wRC+ while being above average against righties with a 108. It’s what led the Padres to sign him as a platoon bat with potential for more.

And to start this season, he’s actually been outstanding against righties and just okay against lefties. Some of that is assuredly sample size with just 26 plate appearances against left-handed pitching in the first month plus of the season. But he’s hitting .364/.386/.527 against righties, which is above and beyond anything he’s ever done. It’s led to him getting more playing time in recent days, but it should maybe lead to even more than it has.

Miguel Andújar’s strange splits are becoming harder for the Padres to ignore

Right now against right-handed pitching, the Padres are having their issues. Through Sunday’s action, they’ve gotten some production with Luis Campusano, Ty France, Xander Bogaerts, Ramon Laureano, and Gavin Sheets hitting well, along with Andújar, but the stars have been a problem. Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, and Jake Cronenworth are all regulars who have been below average against righties. Additionally, Freddy Fermin and Nick Castellanos have struggled mightily. So given Andujar’s success, he almost has to be in there, at least right now. 

The question becomes where you put him. Even with struggles, Machado isn’t going to sit. Neither is Tatis, though Padres fans might be starting to disagree with that. Merrill could sit, but Andújar isn’t playing center and nobody is sliding over to center to make room for him in a corner. While he’s turned himself into a much better outfielder than anyone expected, he’s still not exactly a gold glover anyway, so that part gets a little bit tricky, but left field and first base could work (though he’s only played 32.1 innings at first in his career) and there is always the DH. 

Miguel Andújar’s Padres surge is weird, but is it real?

This is the question that the Padres need to ask themselves. Yes, the numbers are gargantuan. But the underlying numbers show that he’s not actually showing anything different against righties than we’ve seen in the past. His xBA is just .236 against them. His xSLG is just .336. His hard-hit rate is up from previous seasons at 41.7 percent, but he’s not barreling much at all. It will be interesting to see if he starts to see more breaking balls from right-handed arms. 

He has a .500 average and .938 SLG against all breaking balls from righties this year, but the underlying numbers show that it won’t continue. He has a whiff rate of 27.6 percent and a .218 xBA with a .341 xSLG.

On the flip side, while his numbers against lefties haven’t been anything to write home about so far this season, the underlying data is far more encouraging. While the hard-hit rate is low, he’s swinging harder, making more contact and the expected average, at least, should give Padres fans some hope that he will get back to crushing lefties soon enough. 

For now, it does feel like the Padres, with a struggling offense, need to get their offense where it can. Right now, that’s from Andújar. It’s not an ideal position to be in, but good teams find players who overperform. Sometimes it’s the whole season, and sometimes it’s just for portions of the year. If Andújar can perform for a portion of the year, all the better. And if that means the defense needs to weaken slightly, well, that’s where it helps to have a pitching staff in the top half of the league in strikeout rate. Whatever the question, to this point, Andújar has been an answer offensively and will likely need to be more of an answer in the near future.

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