BALTIMORE — Manny Machado would like to keep it simple.
He knows he’s having the worst season of his career. Is well aware he’s among the worst hitters in all the major leagues this year.
And would rather the ugly truth be told in the language of baseball’s traditional markers of futility.
The Mendoza Line? Machado knows all about it – and that he’s well beneath it.
The interstate? Manny’s been riding it all year, hitting a buck-something as his San Diego Padres fell from the depths of a 19-9 start, now fighting to stay above .500.
A miserable Manny, entering June 13 batting .178, on track for a career low in homers, his WAR 1.4 in the red?
Hold up.
Even as he closes in on his 34th birthday, this is still Machado – chest out, taking the punches, ready to counter.
“This is why we love baseball. Us baseball players are masochists. We love being tortured,” Machado tells USA TODAY Sports. “It’s a failing game. We obviously don’t want to be in this position. But that’s the beauty of playing the game – the rollercoaster. It’s a lot of ups and downs.
“You kind of gotta ride that wave and really enjoy every moment of it. The bad, the good, the ugly that comes with it.
“I think it’s why I love the game. Because once you come out of it, once you get going, you remember all those bad times and remember all the good times and get to enjoy the full season of it.”
That season is starting to shrivel, down to 93 games for the Padres and their third baseman whose decision to come to San Diego jarred awake a slumbering franchise that’s now Exhibit A for investing in the product and reaping the rewards.
Mutual funds
The Padres will pay Machado $39 million a season from 2027 through 2033. His performance this year could potentially be viewed as a grim harbinger for that time.
Yet Machado’s dealings with the Padres and late, beloved owner Peter Seidler are an almost perfect example of athlete-owner symbiosis.
Seidler compensated him handsomely twice, first to establish San Diego as a baseball beachhead with a $300 million contract and the next, almost, to thank him for doing so, giving him an 11-year, $350 million pact as he was set to opt out of the original deal.
In return, Machado led the charge to power the Padres into relevance, fueling a stratospheric rise in attendance, revenue and franchise value. And nearly three years after Seidler’s 2023 passing, his family sold the franchise for a major league-record $3.9 billion.
The Padres have made the playoffs four times the past six years. The Padres – ranked 30th in market size by Nielsen – have ranked second, third or fourth in MLB attendance every season since 2021.
“It’s been awesome to see the city grow,” says Machado. “When I came here, fans were kind of content with going to ballgames. And now they’re upset when we go 0-for-4 and losing ballgames. That transition has been awesome to see – how much people care.
“That’s what we play this game for. And that’s why I signed there – to hopefully bring championships and make deep postseason pushes and get that excitement to the city. And we’ve done that.
“It’s been awesome to see from the start now, where they’re being sold.”
Talk about appreciation: Seidler’s family, part of an ownership group that purchased the club for $800 million, reached agreement to sell to private equity guru Jose Feliciano and Kwanza Jones for $3.9 billion.
If it can happen there, can it happen in almost any city?
“There’s a lot. I could name a lot of teams that can do that,” says Machado. “It’s about making that commitment to the fans and to the city.”
Do the evolution
And that brings us to Machado’s recent, possibly ill-timed rant about analytics and other such topics. In a less kinder, more stratified era, it might have been low-hanging fruit for the “analytics community,” but even if Machado’s delivery was inelegant, people got what he meant:
That players don’t need to obsess over the advanced metrics that drive front offices, certain fans and harder-core fantasy players. The traditionally big numbers next to a hitter’s name on the scoreboard typically suffice.
And Saturday, that read MACHADO .178. Which spoke far louder volumes than his wRC+.
(It was 72.)
“No, I’m not hitting. I’m hitting .170. Yeah, obviously I’m going to suck,” says Machado. “You don’t need to this and that and that’s what the game’s come to. People need to talk about things. People need to have an excuse for things.
“No, why don’t you just go back to 1960 when someone was hitting .200, sucked. The Mendoza Line, right? That’s what they call it the Mendoza Line for. Why do we have to create all these other things?
‘It’s where the game’s going to and getting so analytical-based. Get it back to simplifying and enjoying the game.”
And that game only seems to get more difficult – especially for hitters. Pitchers are throwing harder than ever, and those analytical folks with their pitching labs have drawn up some diabolical pitches to beguile future Hall of Famers like Machado.
All the while, Machado is trying to stanch the bleeding in his hard-hit rate (down to 42.7% from 51.5%) and average exit velocity (89.6 mph, down from 92.9 mph). He needs to swing at more strikes.
As he’s aged, his power has not fallen off a cliff. Moreso, he’s eased into a 25-homer guy, a moderate adjustment for a dude with 380 career bombs and seven seasons with at least 30.
The batter’s modern environment makes that soft landing into your mid-30s all the tougher.
“Listen, the game’s evolved, obviously,” says Machado, who debuted in 2012, a couple weeks after his 20th birthday. “Guys were throwing 89, 90 back then. And it went up to 91, 92, up to 94 and now 100. But it’s still the same baseball game.
“You still gotta get out of it. You still gotta struggle. You still gotta win ballgames at the end of the day.”
It’s not impossible. Machado can’t say he’s conquered Jacob Misiorowski – he went 0 for 4 when the Brewers’ unstoppable second-year pitcher started against them May 13 – but he did get the ball in play every time, even as his teammates punched out 10 times.
“One hundred and three, that’s really hard, I’m not going to lie,” he says of The Miz’s default fastball. “But everybody’s throwing 100 these days. One hundred is kind of the new normal. You see it so constantly.
“But 103 dotted, down and away from him and he knows how to control it, how to paint a little better, makes it a little tougher.
“What’s more impressive is the 97 mph sliders he’s throwing. That’s pretty crazy.”
Still, the Padres waited out Misiorowski and rallied to win in the ninth. They found a way.
Machado, even as he wears his failures publicly, is confident he’ll do the same.
‘Nothing is easy’
For a couple hours Saturday afternoon, Machado was the worst hitter in baseball.
Four groundballs – three of them at 70 mph, another at 77 – and Machado was 0 for 4, even as his mates were hitting the ball all over and out of Camden Yards. It dropped his batting average from .178 to .176 – tied with Texas’ Evan Carter for worst average among qualified batters.
But then, in the top of the ninth, he wailed on a first-pitch cutter from Orioles mop-up man Albert Suarez and sent it 429 feet over the wall, the Padres’ fifth homer of the day, Machado’s 12th of the season.
Manny Machado has 12 home runs through 69 games this season after his ninth-inning shot at Camden Yards June 13.
His average crept back up to .178. No longer the worst hitter in the game. Defiantly confident in the climb ahead.
“I’ve been around baseball for a couple days now,” Machado said after the 9-3 victory, nursing a cold Presidente. “I think I kind of know things will turn around.
“This is the big leagues. Nothing is easy.”
Just the way a masochist likes it.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Manny Machado having his worst MLB season, flirting with Mendoza Line
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