Why Jackson Merrill's 25-25 season went unnoticed, and why Padres' star will make sure it doesn't happen again

There were six players to cross the 25-25 threshold (i.e., 25 or more home runs and 25 or more stolen bases) during the 2026 season. One them came courtesty from Pete Crow-Armstrong in the form of a 40-40 campaign that will undoubtedly win him the NL MVP award. Two of the other five belong to members of the San Diego Padres.

Fernando Tatis Jr.'s 25-38 season is deserving of its own headlines simply because of how he got there; after not hitting a single home run until May 30, he ranked top 10 among all players in that category the rest of the way. What he did over the final four months of the regular season was nothing short of superstar caliber.

However, Jackson Merrill's 26-27 effort was far quieter, even though he joined the same exclusive club as Tatis. It's also hard to reconcile that fact given how he finished the season -- in the second half, the center fielder hit a remarkable .304/.339/.569 (148 wRC+) with 16 homers and eight steals.

So, why exactly did his excellent season fail to generate much buzz?

Jackson Merrill's pedestrian final results concealed his superstar revival

One of the biggest things working against Merrill is how bad he was in the first half. Unlike Tatis, who still found ways to produce despite a lack of power in the early going, Merrill completely fell off the radar for non-Friars fans with his pre-All-Star-break performance (.628 OPS, 76 wRC+). After an injury-marred 2025 season, it was easy to speculate that his rookie breakout was something of a fluke.

Of course, he quieted that narrative with his monstrous second half, but that doesn't change the effect those first few months had on his overall numbers. Among that 25-25 crew, Merrill's .743 OPS and 105 OPS+ rank last by a significant margin. Even if you expand the scope out to players who hit the 20-20 threshold -- which introduces 11 more players to the overall group for a total of 17 -- Merrill was third-to-last in both OPS and OPS+.

It's obviously rare for a player to show such an impressive combination of power and speed only to finish with close-to-league-average results, but such is life when you struggle for the better half of a 162-game season. The Friars' young star did rank fifth among all hitters with 3.1 fWAR in the second half, but it's less impressive when that accounted for nearly 75% of his season-long total.

Now healthy and back to his peak form, expect to see Merrill get off to a much quicker start in 2027. If he does, more than a few awards might be waiting for him at the end of the season.

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