San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado has always been elite at his position but how does he stack up to others on Buster Olney's Top 10 list?
San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado is entering his 15th season in Major League Baseball and his eighth with the Padres.
Machado has always been elite on both sides of the ball and has seven All-Star selections to his name, including three with the Padres. Not only can the guy mash, but he can pick it at arguably the toughest position to play besides catcher.
He’s a three-time Silver Slugger winner, two-time Gold Glove winner and even took home the American League Platinum Glove in 2013 as a member of the Baltimore Orioles.
Machado has finished inside the top 10 for Most Valuable Player voting five times, including four top five finishes. He is currently on a Hall of Fame trajectory and is on pace to pass several Hall of Famers in WAR over the next couple of seasons.
But where does he rank on ESPN’s Buster Olney’s 2026 top 10 third basemen list? Olney has Machado as the fourth-best player at his position, only behind the Cleveland Guardians’ Jose Ramirez, Tampa Bay Rays’ Junior Caminero and Chicago Cubs’ Alex Bregman.
“Like Ramirez, Machado is climbing the list of the best third basemen of all time,” Olney wrote Monday. “He needs 31 homers to reach 400, an achievement that will probably happen sometime in 2027, and he's at 61.7 WAR for his career.
“He's about to pass Hall of Famer Todd Helton on that list, and during the season, he may pass Dave Winfield, Jackie Robinson, Andruw Jones and Shoeless Joe Jackson, among others.”
That is certainly legendary company for the 33-year-old to pass, and it doesn’t seem like he will slow down anytime soon. He played 159 games in 2025, the most since 2018 when he played in all 162 with the Orioles and Los Angeles Dodgers.
In those 159 games, Machado was 10th in hits (169) with 60 of them going for extra bases (33 doubles, 27 home runs) while driving in 95 runs and slashing .275/.335/.460. He produced a 4.1 bWAR and was an All-Star for the first time since 2022.
His 118 OPS+ and 115 Rbat+ were above league average (100), and he has been an excellent bat in the middle of the lineup for San Diego. One thing about Machado’s offense that has stood out in the past is that his production dips in the playoffs.
If you’re paying your star player $350 million, you need production in the postseason. He batted just .100 against the Cubs in the National League Wild Card Series last season and carries a .682 OPS in 51 playoff games. Besides that, I don’t think the Padres could ask for more out of Machado. He is one of the best defenders of this generation despite his range taking a bit of a hit in recent seasons.
Machado has 2,069 career hits, 369 homers, 1,144 RBI and an .824 OPS in 1,894 games played. Barring crazy circumstances, it seems like Machado is well on his way to Cooperstown.