Mandatory Credit: Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images
On Wednesday, the Padres signed OF Miguel Andujar to a one-year, $4 million contract for 2026. Andujar, 30, is coming off his best offensive season since 2018 with the New York Yankees.
San Diego was off the major league free agency radar for a while, but they recently made a splash. Although it may look more like just a ripple when you consider the price of the acquisition. Despite the price, the Padres bringing in Miguel Andujar adds some offensive juice to this lineup on paper.
In 2025, Andujar began the year with the Athletics, where he sustained a .765 OPS over 60 games. This was a shock to many, as Andujar mustered up just a .697 clip the year prior across 75 games. The Cincinnati Reds traded for Andujar at the 2025 trade deadline, and he didn’t miss a step. He batted .359 through 34 games with his new club, while facing both lefties and righties.
On a one-year pact for 2026, the Padres’ dream vision is to get Andujar’s 2025 production for another season. The nature of the short, cheap contract suggests that both sides envision a regression of some sort. However, the extent of that regression will determine a lot for the San Diego offense. Andujar is capable of hitting like a regular, but he’ll need to prove it this Spring.
Outperforming expected numbers
The youthful advancement of data analytics likely knocked some dollars off of Andujar’s contract. While his .822 OPS landed ahead of the Padres’ superstar Fernando Tatis Jr, the underlying data told a different story.
Per Statcast’s expected statistics, Andujar’s 2025 production was among the “luckiest” in the MLB. In terms of xwOBA— a fancy stat used to predict a player’s overall offensive output based on exit velocity and launch angle— Andujar lagged far behind the MLB average. His xwOBA landed at .298 while Tatis Jr’s landed at .370, marking a significant gap in pure hitting talent.
Additionally, Andujar’s barrel rate, hard-hit rate, and average exit velocity all landed in the bottom 20% of the MLB. He also chased 35.8% of all pitches that he saw outside of the zone. Poor swing decisions and a lack of power would typically translate to an OPS in the .600s, instead of the .800s.
However, Andujar simply defied those odds, thanks to one key adjustment. Andujar’s newfound tendency to swing first pitch is a big part of why his data doesn’t align with his results. By keeping at-bats shorter, he struck out less and put balls in play early in at-bats. Then, favorable batted ball luck inflated his numbers simply because more balls were in play.
What he does well
While the batted ball luck is a debate, his bat-to-ball skills are undeniably elite. While Andujar expands the zone, it doesn’t translate to whiffs very often. He whiffs on just 17.8% percent of his swings, a rate that’s considered top-end in today’s MLB. His ability to spoil chase pitches with foul balls is particularly special, as his chase contact rate is a full 10% better than the average big leaguer.
Andujar’s knack for avoiding the strikeout is the proverbial equalizer to his unappealing expected statistics. He strikes out less than 15% of the time, which forces pitchers to find other ways to get him out. His .318 batting average in 2025 indicated that pitchers struggled with that task. There’s an obvious argument that his production should naturally decline, but there’s no question that he’ll retain his contact approach.
While the Padres’ offseason focus was to add some power, a .300 hitter should be on anyone’s wish list. If Andujar’s skillset can output an OPS around .750, that’s a win for GM AJ Preller and the Padres.
New ballpark impacts
In 2025, Andujar was blessed with two of the most hitter-friendly ballparks that the MLB has to offer. In the A’s temporary minor-league ballpark, Sutter Health Park, Andujar’s slugging percentage jumped nearly 60 points from 2024. Remember, the A’s played in the less-forgiving Oakland Coliseum before 2025. Now, hitters are graced with a minor league-size ballpark with loads of favorable conditions. The ballpark sees hot and humid weather on the regular, and the open design allows wind to give baseballs an extra push.
So, Andujar hits well in a minor league ballpark and gets traded to an eventual playoff team. It just so happens that his destination was the second-best ballpark for hitters, according to Statcast’s Park Factor. His slugging percentage jumped all the way up to .544 in his small stint with Cincinnati, which appeared ridiculous in comparison to his .377 mark from 2024. That’s no small improvement— that’s a completely different player in the right-handed batter’s box
Playing home contests at Petco Park in 2026 will certainly be a different experience for Andujar. Petco Park is firmly known to be more of a pitcher’s park than a slugging factory. He’ll need to lean on his contact skills to sustain his success in this new environment. Andujar slugged .503 in home games last season, compared to .437 on the road. It’s an easy prediction to say that those splits won’t look the same in 2026.
A 17-year-old San Diego native, Willy Warren is a baseball fan at heart who created High Leverage Baseball, a public baseball media account covering around-the-league statistical analysis and breakdowns on X. Willy is set to attend the Cronkite School of Journalism in the fall of 2026 at Arizona State University, where he’ll pursue a major in sports journalism.
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