Jackson Merrill put together the kind of season that usually gets remembered - 26 home runs, 27 stolen bases, and a second-half surge that looked every bit like star power. Yet when the 2026 season ended, his name didn’t carry nearly the weight of the other members of baseball’s 25-25 club.
That disconnect starts with who else joined that group. Pete Crow-Armstrong had the loudest season of them all, going 40-40 in a year that will almost certainly land him the NL MVP award.
Fernando Tatis Jr. also reached the threshold for the San Diego Padres with a 25-38 line, and his path there was impossible to ignore. He didn’t homer until May 30, then finished the season top 10 among all players in that category the rest of the way.
What he did over the final four months was superstar-level production.
Merrill’s case was different. His final stat line was strong, but it never fully told the story of how he recovered after a rough opening stretch.
Before the All-Star break, he was largely invisible to anyone outside San Diego, posting a .628 OPS and a 76 wRC+. After an injury-marred 2025 season, it was fair for people to wonder whether his rookie breakout had been a one-off.
Instead, he flipped the script in a big way. In the second half, Merrill hit .304/.339/.569 with 16 home runs and eight stolen bases, production that looked much more in line with the player Padres fans believed they had.
But the early damage stuck to his season totals. His .743 OPS and 105 OPS+ were the lowest among the 25-25 group by a wide margin.
Even when the pool is widened to players who reached 20 home runs and 20 steals, giving the group 17 names, Merrill still lands near the bottom in both OPS and OPS+. That’s the reality of a 162-game season: a brutal first half can bury even a breakout second half under middling overall numbers.
The upside is that Merrill’s finish was strong enough to matter. He ranked fifth among all hitters with 3.1 fWAR in the second half, though that stretch made up nearly 75% of his season total.
If he gets out of the gate faster in 2027, the attention should follow. And if he does that, he may have more than a few awards waiting for him when it’s all over.
In Other News...
Padres Prospect Justin DeCriscio Is Forcing His Way Onto The Radar
Justin DeCriscio keeps adding to his case at a time when the Padres are always looking for young players who can push their way into the conversation. After going undrafted in 2024 before landing with San Diego as a 10th-round pick in the 2025 draft, he has used the Arizona Fall League to show why his name is starting to circulate a little more loudly. The blend is obvious enough: some offensive progress, enough speed to stand out, and the kind of defensive flexibility that lets a club imagine different ways to use him.
The latest jolt came with a three-run home run, the sort of swing that gets attention beyond a prospect report. DeCriscio has also been moving around the field, which only adds to the sense that he can help himself by staying adaptable, but the bigger question remains how his bat holds up against more advanced pitching. For a player who has already taken an unusual path just to get drafted, this fall is becoming an important test of how far that late momentum can carry him. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Suddenly Have A Shot At A Power Bat Worth Debating
Hanshins decision to post Teruaki Sato has put a potential power bat on the market just as the Padres continue weighing ways to deepen their lineup. San Diego is among the teams considering a run at the slugger, whose appeal is obvious enough: he offers the kind of offensive upside that can change the shape of a batting order, but landing him would come with real financial baggage in both a contract and a posting fee.
For the Padres, the question is not simply whether Sato can hit, but whether his power translates cleanly to MLB pitching and where he would fit defensively. Manny Machado is expected to stay at third base, which means San Diego would have to map out another role for Sato if it moves forward, making this as much a roster puzzle as a talent evaluation. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Cannot Risk Another Cheap Rotation Fix
The Padres spent the season learning the hard way that a deep bullpen can only cover so much. Even with relief pitching holding up its end, the rotation never gave the club the stability it needed, and the series of low-cost bets on German Marquez, Griffin Canning, Walker Buehler and Lucas Giolito never produced the kind of dependable innings San Diego was hoping for. Injuries to Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta only made the problem more severe, leaving the staff thin when it could least afford it.
The deadline moves for Robbie Ray and Casey Mize were supposed to help steady things, but they did not change the overall picture enough to matter. For a team trying to contend, the lesson is plain: the Padres cannot treat starting pitching as something to patch together on the cheap again. This offseason has to be about rebuilding the rotation with more certainty, because the margin for another missed swing is already gone. [Read more 🡒]