Padres' Manny Machado regressed after working with trainer who helped Aaron Judge

The San Diego Padres have been one of the more confounding teams in Major League Baseball this season, as they have some great pitching and clutch hitting, but the offense overall is one of the worst in the entire league.

Most notably, Manny Machado, who's meant to be a core player for this team, is going through some major struggles this season with a brutal .172 batting average. So, how did Machado get to such a terrible spot offensively?

Kevin Acee of The San Diego Union Tribune reports that, over the offseason, Machado trained under the hitting coach who helped Aaron Judge, Richard Schenck, and, since then, he's regressed significantly.

Manny Machado regressed after visit with Aaron Judge's hitting trainer

"He was looking for ways to be better, to go more explosive," Acee writes. "So he visited Richard Schenck, best known for his work with three-time American League MVP Aaron Judge."

While, in theory, this shouldn't be such a drastic issue for Machado, Acee outlined how this offseason training has led to the struggles and "set him off course" during the 2026 season.

"It is, according to several team and league sources, either familiar with the work he has done or who have viewed video of his at-bats, the mechanical changes Machado made in the winter that contributed to his being consistently late getting to fastballs," Acee writes.

The Padres slugger is struggling mightily this season, with a .172 batting average and a .216 batting average against fastballs, which, as Acee notes, is a "precipitous decline" from his .319 average a year ago.

According to Acee, Schenck, "essentially preaches staying on the back leg, coiling up the body, letting the ball go as deep as possible and then unleashing a swing as fast as possible."

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While this might be working for Judge, who, before his injury, was having another MVP-type season, Machado has struggled with such changes.

Acee notes, "However, he (Machado) said this week that he did some work this offseason that has set him off course."

While it's hard to blame all of Machado's struggles this season on the offseason work with Schenck, it's clear that something has gone very wrong this season, and the work with the hitting coach who helped Judge might be one of the reasons why.

This is a very interesting report from Acee, and is something to keep in mind as Machado tries to break out of his struggles this season.

Whether it's unlearning what he did over the offseason or getting back to his swing from years prior mechanically, Machado needs to switch things up to get back on track after a brutal start to the 2026 season with a .597 OPS.

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