He walks at a high rate.
His exit velocity was routinely high.
Pitchers were throwing the same kind of pitch mix to him.
There was a deviation from his traditional Whole Fields approach that became familiar in DC.
But not enough to suggest a different man wore the same uniform.
His slash line told a different story.
Great production from an average big leaguer.
Moderately troubling from a generational talent on the fast track to Cooperstown.
He’s got 6 long balls over the same time and is top 20 in WAR among position players.
Whatever’s different, something’s different.
have allowed pitchers to reverse engineer more effective offspeed to counter league-wide adjustments in hitting.
The sheer volume of data has ushered in a new adjustment era that we’re just starting to see.
Obvious point in the timeline can be seen as Velocity Increases and the evolution of the 3-outcome hitter.
And now you’ll see more rapid back-and-forth, especially with the rule changes.
A good example of this next wave of adjustments will be the offensive skillsets.
Scouts that clamor over power will start to spread some of that towards speed and defensive versatility.
Two-way guys get longer leashes as the Pop Time Revolution takes full shape.
There’s a lot of moving parts.
One unwavering tenet is the value of left-handed production in the middle of your batting order.
As long as we’re playing baseball, thunderous lefties will have a place in the game.
Now that Juan Soto seems to be solved, the Padres should move their attention to Manny Machado.
If anything he’s benefited from the PR protection much less lineup protection afforded by Soto and Tatis.
But if those guys are somewhat normal now, what the hell happened to Manny?
.654 OPS while playing every day?
Half of that sounds like Manny.
I don’t know what to make about the offense though.
Unless he’s hurt - he always gives a fuck enough to hit line drives.
And he plays almost every single day going back to every year of his career.
So something doesn’t line up here and we’re far enough along to start asking serious questions.
This time next week I’m writing another blog about how Manny Machado has returned to form.
That’s usually how this works.
The Padres are too good not to be too good.
Just a matter of time before they actually go out and do it, right?
Stay tuned in San Diego.
So far, not good:
