{"id":114605,"date":"2026-02-23T21:23:48","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:23:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=114605"},"modified":"2026-02-23T21:23:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T02:23:48","slug":"miguel-andujar-offers-glimpse-of-potential-in-cactus-league-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/02\/23\/miguel-andujar-offers-glimpse-of-potential-in-cactus-league-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Miguel Andujar Offers Glimpse of Potential in Cactus League Action"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2018, a 23-year-old for the New York Yankees broke out onto the scene. Miguel Andujar<\/a> was the starting third baseman for the club, setting a record for doubles by a rookie and finishing the season with a .297\/.328\/.527 slash line and 27 home runs.<\/span><\/p>\n

That year, he posted 2.8 WAR in 149 games played, finishing second in AL Rookie of the Year voting<\/a> to Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher\/designated hitter Shohei Ohtani<\/a> (maybe you\u2019ve heard of him).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since then, Andujar has yet to replicate the offensive production he had in 2018, putting up an average OPS of .744 across his other eight seasons in Major League Baseball. To put it simply, he\u2019s been league average at best and injury-stricken at worst.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2025 Renaissance<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Andujar was a late offseason addition by the San Diego Padres, being signed to a one-year, $4 million contract with the club. That contract came largely because of the resurgent 2025 he had off the bench between his time with the Athletics and the Cincinnati Reds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He batted .318 across 321 plate appearances with his highest OPS since his rookie year campaign (.822). The renaissance he had last year was only hampered by a right oblique strain sustained in June that ended up keeping him out for a month.<\/span><\/p>\n

A New Look in San Diego<\/h2>\n

There\u2019s a clear reason why general manager A.J. Preller wanted to pick up Andujar. The Padres struggled against left-handed pitchers in 2025. The club put together a .256\/.323\/.397 slash line against righties compared to .244\/.316\/.375 when facing lefties.<\/span><\/p>\n

Andujar, on the other hand, rakes against left-handed pitching. In 2025, he hit .389\/.409\/.578 against lefties and .290\/.331\/.429 against righties. His stats against right-handers were still good, but the numbers became monstrous when he faced left-handers.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s why today\u2019s Cactus League game against the Milwaukee Brewers means something. In the Padres\u2019 7-5 comeback win over Milwaukee, Andujar demolished a 93 mph sinker from left-hander Drew Rom<\/a> 369 feet for San Diego\u2019s first run of the day.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to note that this is only game three of spring training, and Andujar is 1-for-5, so it\u2019s a relatively small sample size. But it\u2019s also possible that he\u2019s showing signs of tapping back into the power that has long been dormant since that 2018 rookie year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If he can unlock that power again, it would push San Diego that much closer toward dethroning the rival Los Angeles Dodgers in their division, and their World Series aspirations.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Denis Poroy-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2018, a 23-year-old for the New York Yankees broke out onto the scene. Miguel Andujar was the starting third baseman for the club, setting a record for doubles by a rookie and finishing the season with a .297\/.328\/.527 slash line and 27 home runs. That year, he posted 2.8 WAR in 149 games played, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5784,"featured_media":108886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,27,35],"tags":[280,1490,2178],"class_list":["post-114605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-brewers","category-news","tag-a-j-preller","tag-miguel-andujar","tag-shohei-ohtani"],"modified_by":"Augustus Oswald, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5784"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114605"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114656,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114605\/revisions\/114656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}