Machado | Tales of a streaky hitter

There’s been a lot of talk among Padre fans about the production of Manny Machado. Has he been the impact player we expected? Is he hitting as well as we thought he would?

Over the course of his career, Manny Machado has been remarkably consistent. Over a 162 game average, he hits .281 with 31 HR and 90 RBI. His clutch hitting stats are also impressive. With 2 outs and RISP he’s a career .271 hitter. He has a .365 OBP in those situations, which would be in the top 3 of any team in the league.

So, where do we stand today? Machado is hitting .250 8 HR’s and 20 RBI. His OPS (on base + slugging %) is well below his career average. Are there signs that Machado is getting ready to break out? His career trends are a good indicator. Let’s dig deeper.

On the surface, it appears as though Manny doesn’t favor any particular month. Per baseball reference, here are his month by month stats over the course of his career. You can see that July and September are historically his weaker months, but the splits don’t show a dramatic drop off at any given time.

Here’s where it gets really interesting. For example, May 2017 he hit .191 with 6 HR and 12 RBI. He also had just a .238 OBP. In August that same here, he hit .341 with 12 HR and 35 RBI. his OBP was .348. Interesting.

Another example is 2018. In April, he hit .361 with 9 HR and 22 RBI. He walked more than he struck out, and had a .448 OBP. Fast forward to August and it was a different story. He hit .266 with 7 HR and 18 RBI. Similar power numbers, but his BA and OBP plummeted.

These aren’t the only 2 examples. You can look at his entire career and find the same trend.

That’s a streaky player if I’ve ever seen one.

What’s the point? Well, Machado isn’t necessarily known as a streaker hitter but he’s clearly in that category. In April, Machado hit just .236 with 4 HR and 12 RBI. Statistically it was one of the poorer months of his career. But, as the law of Manny would suggest he’s already matched his HR total 11 days into May. In my opinion, he’s had higher quality at bats. Conclusion? He’s about to go on a tear. After analyzing him month by month through his career, there’s no question we’re about to see a different ball player.

Time will tell, but the team is winning without their superstar hitting. It’s inevitable that the team will get a month where he becomes a .350 hitter and changes the outcome of games.

Could May be that month?

The smart money says yes.