Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado have always been on parallel tracks as ground-breaking third basemen. This season they've been dealing with their offensive declines. (Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
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PHOENIX -- Nolan Arenado and Manny Machado have been inextricably tied by the hip since they broke into the Major Leagues, Machado with the Orioles in 2012 and Arenado with the Rockies in 2013.
Together they’ve combined for 15 All-Star berths, eight for Arenado and seven for Machado, and are on dual paths to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The pair re-wrote how to play third base. Prior to their arrival it was a reactive position dominated by the quick hands and reflexes of those that came before them – Mike Schmidt, Brooks Robinson, Ken and Clete Boyer, and Eddie Mathews.
Arenado and Machado play third base like middle infielders, further back and with a lot of foot movement from side to side. They go across the foul line deftly and because of strong arms turn many a potential base hit into outs.
Even at their advanced ages for baseball – Arenado just turned 35 and Machado will turn 34 next month – they don’t seem to have lost a defensive step.
However, offensive deterioration has been both players’ main issue over the first third of the 2026 season.
“Father Time is the great equalizer,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said last week. “It stops for no one.”
Roberts is also dealing with the aging of several of his stars, Mookie Betts (33) and Freddie Freeman (36).
“They’re a work in progress,” Roberts added.
Arenado has started making adjustments and is hitting .256 with a .773 OPS and a 128 OPS+ in his first months with the D-backs.
“For me the skills are still there,” Arenado told Forbes earlier in the D-backs just-concluded homestand at Chase Field. “It’s just about getting my body in position. It takes a little bit more work to get ready. [The coaches] are working with me every day just to help me find it.”
Meanwhile, Machado is having by far the worst of his 15 MLB seasons with a .169 batting average, a .342 slugging percentage, a .596 OPS and 70 OPS+ for the Padres. He’s well below the league average of 100 in the OPS+ category.
For the month of May, Machado played all 28 games and batted .127 with six homers and 14 RBIs. First-year manager Craig Stammen didn’t even give him a few days off to figure things out. But yesterday’s gone.
“I don’t even remember that,” Machado told the media at Petco Park before the game on Friday. “I’m just thinking about what I have to do today. You guys want to hit the panic button. You guys have all been talking about it. We’ve been talking about it. We haven’t really been playing well.”
Machado is one element of a team-wide Padres slump during which they designated .191 hitting Nick Castellano for assignment and have lost 11 of their last 13 games. The Padres are hitting a Major League Baseball low of .214, which is historically their worst team batting average ever. Machado, for one, can’t seem to catch up anymore on a good fastball.
"I’ve noticed 15 years of a lot of fastballs,” Machado said. “When I came up it was 91, 92, 93 (mph). Now it’s 101. The game has evolved as you can see. It’s definitely getting harder to play. It’s definitely getting more strategic. I just wish we could get analytics out of the way. There are too many stats. It goes back to old-school stuff: just see the ball, hit the ball.”
Arenado had serious shoulder and hand injuries during the 2025 season at St. Louis where he batted .237, 44 points below his career mark of .281. The Cardinals traded him to Arizona late in the offseason with $42 million remaining on the final two years of his eight-year, $260 million contract. The D-backs assumed only $11 million of it, $5 million for this season and $6 million for 2027.
The Padres aren’t going to have the same kind of luck getting out from under Machado’s enormous contract. They’re on the hook for $31.8 million a year through 2033, or a total of $223.6 million.
“It’s just a matter of time for a player like Manny,” Arenado said. “For me, there are just certain feels. It’s hard to explain. There’s things you want to do to get yourself back to where you used to be. But then those things, those feels just don’t click. For a long time, I didn’t have to do those things. I did it one way and it worked. Now you’re getting older. Your body feels different. You have to adjust.”
Machado is hitting 107 points less than his lifetime batting average of .276 and is showing no signs of improving. He has a penchant for jogging rather sprinting out infield grounders and when I confronted him about it in an interview last month for Times of San Diego, the infielder commented:
"That’s my sprint. I touch first base. What else do you want me to do? I don’t know what you’re referring to. Running to first base is running to first base.”
Machado takes between 4.3 to 4.5 seconds to run from the right side of the plate to first base, way above the league average of roughly 4.15 seconds.
I thought he was being sarcastic at the time, but a few days later, Machado hit a slow roller to shortstop and tried to beat it out. He was erased at first by at least two strides. It’s a clear a sign of deterioration.
The analytics website Baseball Savant indicates another point of decline. In the three seasons since 2023, Machado's bat speed has declined from 76.7 mph to 74.1 mph. His fast swing rate has plummeted from 66.3 mph then to 37.2 mph now. At that rate it’s almost impossible to chase 91-mph pitches, let alone 101.
Arenado’s bat speed of 71.3 mph is exactly the same as it was three years ago and right at the league average. He’s not a speedster on the bases either, but he runs out ground balls. On Sunday against the Nationals, he didn’t hesitate to take third on a single to left when he noticed the third baseman had vacated the bag. He scored a moment later.
“It was heads up,” D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. “I felt the energy in the dugout at the moment. It doesn’t take much to get a team going. It doesn’t need to be a homer. It can be something like a guy who’s been doing it for a long time just pulling that trick out of the bag. That was very inspiring.”
It’s a long season as we all know with basically 100 games left to play. Machado or Arenado has always been the age-old question. Right now, it’s Arenado. We’ll see what happens as the next couple of months play out.
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