Padres News: Manny Machado Lands in the Top 10 MLB Players Right Now
MLB Network has been rolling out their Top 100 Right Now list over the past few weeks, and we finally got the Top 10 on Thursday. We knew Padres third baseman Manny Machado would be in the Top 10 because he hadn't shown up yet in numbers 11-100, but we didn't know where he'd land among stiff competition.
As it turns out, Machado ended up with a pretty impressive ranking.
Manny comes in at number five, trailing just Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Mike Trout, and Mookie Betts. That also makes Machado the second-best National League player, which makes sense considering his second-place finish in last year's NL Most Valuable Player voting. Of course, the guy Manny finished behind in the MVP race, St. Louis first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, finished seventh on MLB Network's list, and it was fifth-place MVP finisher Betts who came in ahead of Machado here.
Machado had the best offensive season of his career in 2022, posting a 159 OPS+ with 32 home runs, 102 RBIs, and 100 runs scored. He made his sixth All-Star team and brought home his fourth top-five MVP finish in leading the Padres to a Wild Card spot and ultimately to the NL Championship Series.
Manny is going into the fifth year of his ten-year contract with San Diego, and he's stated his intention to opt out of the deal after the 2023 season. Padres owner Peter Seidler has said it's a priority to keep Machado around, but after this past offseason's free-agent spending spree, it makes sense that the 30-year-old superstar would want to get back on the market.
Machado will anchor a 2023 Friars lineup that includes Juan Soto, Xander Bogaerts, and Fernando Tatis Jr., hoping to build on last year's success and go even further in October this year.