Return of Tatis
The San Diego Padres are in trouble.
The Padres are 2-8 in their last ten games and have watched their Wild Card lead vanish. The Cincinnati Reds are now tied with the Padres and show no signs of disappearing. But it’s not just the Reds that should concern the Padres. Both the Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals are also gaining ground. In that same ten-game span, the Phillies have gone 3-7, while the Cardinals have gone 7-3.
Tatis reaches up using his injured left shoulder, something Preller and the Padres expected him to rest more of in the outfield. K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune
The Phillies, like the Padres, seem to have difficulty beating sub .500 teams, as they got swept by the Diamondbacks earlier this week. That comes to a head though, as the Phillies and Padres battle it out this weekend. The Phillies have surged with their offense while losing one of their top contributors, Rhys Hoskins. Further, the Phillies have performed well without their ace, Zach Wheeler, contributing much. Wheeler has had a rough past 4 starts. Going 4-3 with an ERA of 4.03. That is not what the Phillies need. But, if they continue to figure it out, as they did Friday night, the Padres should be in panic mode.
Now of course, while the Phillies are losing health, the Padres are regaining theirs, with the return of elite player and MVP candidate Fernando Tatis Jr. But, how much could Tatis change the Padres’ woes? Tatis currently leads the National League in home runs with 34 and leads all of MLB in OPS, OPS+, and SLG. And, since his return from the Injured List, he is slashing .320/.393/.800. No doubt, he is a game-changer. But, as another Southern Californian player, Mike Trout, would illustrate, one player alone cannot change the fate of a team.
The Padres are hurting. Their pitching has been dreadful. The past seven days, their ERA is 5.53, with a WHIP of 1.28. Those are in the bottom five of MLB teams and not a standard for playoff contenders. But no one is asking Tatis to be a dual-sided player. Instead, the Padres are asking him to play in the outfield, in the hopes it reduces the stress to his left shoulder. What? In his 5 games in the outfield he has had 13 putouts, and, last I checked, flyouts require the use of the player’s glover, also known as, Tatis’ injured shoulder. Further, outfielders have to field ground balls, so really, what stress is being alleviated here? If anything, one would argue, it is harder on his non-throwing shoulder, as he has to chase balls down in the gap, avoid walls, and make longer throws. The key here is to tell a dynamic competitor like Tatis to avoid playing “hard”.
Tatis is not an apathetic player. He is a competitor, and that is what makes him so exciting to watch.
So GM AJ Preller and manager Jayce Tingler’s recommendation that he plays outfield and be safe out there is just nonsense. This shifting of the lineup and field is an odd configuration, and I don’t think it will age well. Now, it is not like Tatis was the model example of a defensive shortstop. Instead, Jake Cronenworth has been a vacuum at shortstop and collectively has seven DRS. But, the attempts by the Padres to plug and play their star in the outfield is a grave error.
While Preller and the Padres’ front office may think it shores up their outfield defensive woes, it likely creates stress for the other outfielders. Much like Hosmer faced going into the trade deadline, for MLB players to continue to perform at their elite levels, they need routines. So an outfielder like Trent Grisham or Wil Myers, both that have been contributing offensively, needs assurance that their overall contributions are valued and they will be played. That, however, is not consistent, instead, it is anyone’s guess what the lineup card will be.
The Padres were a great team on paper going into the 2021 season. No one expected the Giants to be the force they are. Yet the Padres’ continuous reliance on subpar pitching from Chris Paddock and Blake Snell was shortsighted. The Padres desperately needed pitching at the deadline and put all their eggs in the basket of Max Scherzer. Yet when the Dodgers got him, the Padres seemingly ended their trade hunt. Now, Preller and company must rely on Joe Musgrove and Jake Arrieta to carry them to the playoffs. I don’t like their chances.