The Unflappable Fernando Tatis Jr. Believes He’s Better Than Ever

After multiple surgeries and a lengthy PED suspension, the San Diego star says he’s ready for his first meaningful major-league game in 18 months.

The greatest forgotten player in baseball has a message for you. And if you didn’t quite pick it up as Fernando Tatis Jr. hit .459 in spring training after a cobweb-shaking 0-for-16 start, or has been hitting .515 on his minor league rehab assignment, the Padres outfielder wants to give it to you directly.

“I feel like I’m going to have enough time, when I come back to the big leagues, to be ready and I’m definitely going to be back to the same player that I was before,” Tatis says (before embarking on his smashing tour of Triple A).

The same player who in 2020–21 won a home run title and two Silver Sluggers, who finished in the top four in MVP voting twice and is the only player in baseball history with 80 homers and 50 steals in his first 273 games? That same guy who was in the “best player in baseball” conversation? That superstar?

After a short pause, he smiles and adds, “Better.”

Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Privately, the Padres are trying to tone down the expectations. Tatis, 24, is eligible to return from his 80-game PED suspension Thursday when San Diego plays at Arizona. It will be his first meaningful major-league game in 18 months, during which time he broke his left wrist riding a motorcycle, underwent three surgeries (two on his left wrist from the accident and one on his left shoulder stemming from multiple dislocations in 2021), flunked a test for a banned substance, awkwardly if not comically tried to blame the failed test on medication for ringworm, lost his beloved shortstop position to free agent Xander Bogaerts and took up right field as his new position.

As one team source says, “It’s too much to ask him to be that 1.000 OPS guy right away. He hasn’t played in a year and a half. It’s going to take time.”

Tatis will hear none of it. Whatever doubts there might have been about his physical status have been brushed aside with how he has crushed the ball in spring training and the minors. On March 18, he smashed his first home run off a fastball from Chris Flexen. Most importantly, he did so with that high, one-hand finish that had been almost impossible in 2021 when he played through the shoulder injury. Six days later, he did it again, this time reaching clear across home plate for a pitch from Aaron Loup that was out of the strike zone and driving it with his one-hand finish over the center field wall. He has mashed seven homers in 33 minor league at-bats and posted an absurd slash line of .515/.590/1.212.

“No issues, not with my wrist or shoulder,” Tatis says. “I actually feel great. I feel like we’ve got a really good program since the shoulder surgery, and we really have been attacking it and focused on it. And I feel like all the work that we have done is paying off.”

When Tatis is right, that high, one-hand finish helps him backspin a baseball as well as any hitter. When I ask him whether he can be that same hitter after the surgery and the time off, he says, “Definitely. I definitely have that now. That’s in my back pocket again. The shoulder feels great, and the wrists are all good. Everything feels the same to me.”

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After the Padres were so disgusted with Tatis’s drug suspension they ordered him to steer clear of the team during its postseason run, they suddenly find themselves needing him and the spark he could provide. Despite the third-highest payroll in baseball, the Padres have a losing record (8–10), have hit .194 with runners in scoring position, rank 24th in runs and have a huge void in right field, Tatis’s new position. The four players they have tried there have combined to hit .180 with no home runs.

Tatis was suspended 80 games after testing positive for Clostebol, which is on MLB’s banned substances list :: Orlando Ramirez/USA TODAY Sports

With Manny Machado emerging as a team leader and Bogaerts, Juan Soto, Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter bringing more professionalism into the San Diego clubhouse, the Padres hope Tatis has left behind the unwanted drama from last season. He was on his way back from the motorcycle injury and prepared to give San Diego a boost in the stretch drive when he was hit with the PED suspension Aug. 12. He was not around the team as the Padres reached the NLCS against Philadelphia. He was sent home, left to watch his teammates come within three wins of reaching the World Series and wonder what might have happened if he were there.

“I was already home,” he says. “They gave me that time and they told me to get some time with myself. And I was back in my ranch and, you know, I was pulling for my boys. ... I watched most of the games. I probably didn’t watch [maybe] one game. I was doing something back home, but then after that I was watching most of the games.

“It was definitely hard, definitely hard watching from home—especially watching them come up short, knowing that I wasn’t able to contribute. Especially in those key moments when I know I become my best version of myself in those clutch moments of the game.

“But you know, I’ve got to remember that taste so, yeah, I never want to [go] back there. Hopefully I’ll stay in there, and now we’ll go out there and win it all.”

This spring, Padres manager Bob Melvin dabbled in how best to arrange a batting order loaded with All-Stars, though many of them left during that time to play in the World Baseball Classic. (The Padres’ roster includes 11 former All-Stars, more than any team in the National League.) He tried Tatis first, second and third. Tatis has started in the leadoff spot more than any other in his big league career but prefers to hit with more runners on base rather than following the No. 9 hitter. Despite that preference, Melvin recently decided Tatis will bat leadoff.

“It’s like hitting the other team with a hurricane right at the top,” Melvin says.

Melvin will hit Soto second—even though Soto prefers to hit third—in part because Melvin wants Soto to see more fastballs, which could happen with Tatis on base ahead of him. Since last Aug. 29, Soto has hit .130 against breaking pitches with no home runs. Machado will hit third and Bogaerts fourth.

Bogaerts has hit leadoff against left-handers and has been the most consistent hitter on the team. When San Diego first called with interest about Bogaerts as a free agent last winter, Bogaerts, aware of Tatis’s return, asked, “What position?” The Padres explained they wanted him to play shortstop and Tatis to play right field. San Diego signed Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280 million deal.

Tatis’s athleticism and arm strength are major advantages in right field, though he is still learning the proper angles to take to balls. When asked whether it was hard to leave shortstop behind, Tatis says, “I feel it’s not hard at all.”

Tatis Jr. says he is has no issues playing in right field this season: “I feel it’s not hard at all.” :: Allan Henry/USA TODAY Sports

But then he quickly talked about moving back to shortstop someday.

“I feel like we put some good conversation in before [spring training] and I feel like I flipped that switch before even getting here—to go from shortstop to the outfield,” he says. “And, you know, in the future being able to do both. At the end of the day, I feel like I’m one of the best athletes and I want to contribute and be able to venture into every single part of the game.”

It has been so long since Tatis played a major league game, it might be hard to remember how dashingly well he played. In his first three seasons (2019–21)—starting at age 20—Tatis posted a higher OPS than every hitter except Mike Trout and Soto. He hit more home runs in his first 273 games (81) than every player in history except Ryan Howard (83) and Aaron Judge (also 81) while stealing 52 bases in 65 tries. Over those three years, he had the second-highest slugging percentage, the fifth-highest exit velocity and the sixth-fastest sprint speed (minimum 300 runs). No player was more dynamic.

Injuries and the PED bust pushed him off the baseball map. Now to hear him speak, the physical rehabilitation of Tatis is complete and the rehabilitation of his image as one of the game’s great players is on schedule to begin Thursday.

Says Tatis, “I’m putting my best game out there. It feels like nothing that I haven’t done before.”