The 2026 season will follow Manny Machado with one label: the worst of his career. A .217 average, .710 OPS, and 1.5 WAR — all personal historic lows in a full season — arrived at the same time, in the same year, in the same San Diego Padres uniform. And the problem isn’t just the numbers: the contract still has $270 million guaranteed from 2027 through 2033.
When Every Career Low Hits at Once
Machado turned 34 in 2026 and was struggling from the jump. By June he was batting below .175 — his lowest mark since his prospect days — and while the second half was better, it wasn’t enough to undo the damage. Thirty home runs and 91 RBI sound reasonable on paper; the context eats them alive.
The number that stings most is his 97 OPS+. That means Machado produced offensively below the MLB average hitter — the first time that has happened in a full season in his career. His career OPS+ sits at 122, meaning he’s historically been 22% better than league average. Dropping to 97 isn’t a stumble; it’s a different player.
His 43.6% Hard-Hit rate (Statcast) tells the same story from another angle. For context, his career average was above 50%. In 2026, nearly one in four balls that used to come off his bat with authority no longer cleared that threshold. The raw power didn’t fully vanish — his average exit velocity was 90.1 mph, 67th percentile in MLB — but the consistency did.
BABIP, Double Plays, and Disappearing Speed
Two numbers explain why the season felt even worse than the home run total suggests.
His BABIP of .231 — the rate at which balls in play fall for hits, excluding home runs and strikeouts — was the second worst in the entire league. That means when Machado put the ball in play, he almost never reached base: either he hit it straight at a glove or rolled it slowly to the infield.
Rolling it to the infield has a name and a number: 22 double plays grounded into during the regular season, tied for second most in MLB in 2026 (Junior Caminero led with 26; Machado and Freddie Freeman shared second at 22). It’s not a new pattern — Machado led MLB in GIDP in 2018 (26), 2024 (25), and tied for the lead in 2019 (24). With 245 for his career, he is the active all-time leader in the category.
His sprint speed explains part of why the double plays pile up: 25.3 feet per second, 8th percentile in MLB. He’s not just slow for his own standard — he’s among the slowest active players in baseball. When the ball rolls, Machado has no margin for error.
The Contract, the Postseason, and the 2027 Question
Padres GM A.J. Preller publicly dismissed any trade talk in October 2026 — and for two reasons: Machado holds a full no-trade clause, and he is considered a franchise cornerstone alongside Fernando Tatis Jr. The trade rumors that swirled during the summer, partly fueled by the team’s new ownership group, went nowhere.
What remains is the financial question. The contract restructured in 2023 guarantees approximately $39 million per year through 2033. If 2026 represents Machado’s new baseline, the Padres are carrying more than $270 million committed to a player who finished below the league’s offensive average.
The counterpoint is real and worth stating: in the 2026 postseason, Machado hit .350 with a 1.080 OPS over 20 plate appearances. His defense at third base didn’t slip either — a .990 fielding percentage, first in the National League, with just 3 errors in 139 games, one of the four best single-season marks ever recorded for a third baseman in MLB history.
The question heading into 2027 is whether those flashes are the real Machado — or a reminder of who he used to be.
The Numbers Behind the Season
- 677 plate appearances
- 30 home runs, 91 RBI
- AVG: .217 | OPS: .710 | OPS+: 97
- xwOBA: .328 (expected production based on contact quality)
- Exit velocity: 90.1 mph avg | Barrel rate: 9.7%
- Hard-Hit%: 43.6% | Bat speed: 74.7 mph (80th percentile)
- Sprint speed: 25.3 ft/sec (8th percentile — among the slowest in MLB)
- BABIP: .231 (2nd worst in MLB) | GIDP: 22 (tied 2nd in MLB)
