With Minimal Award Representation, Where Can Padres Improve Defensively In 2026?

[Randy Holt]

If you're looking at how the 2025 defensive awards shook out for the recently-completed Major League Baseball season, you're not going to find much representation for the San Diego Padres. In fact, Fernando Tatis Jr. was the list in both nominations and reception. The team's right fielder took home a nomination and subsequent victory for the Rawlings Gold Glove Award and was named the Fielding Bible Award winner for right field.

There isn't any question that such recognition was deserved for Tatis Jr. His Fielding Run Value (nine) paced right fielders, while his Outs Above Average (eight) trailed only Arizona's Corbin Carroll (nine) among the group. His 15 Defensive Runs Saved were six more than any other National League right fielder. None of those represents a surprising output (given how much his defense buoyed his overall value in '25), but it's an impressive feat nonetheless.

But, again, that shouldn't be the story here. Tatis Jr.'s defensive prowess should continue to earn him accolades for the foreseeable future; he already has a pair of Gold Gloves and a Platinum Glove to his name since moving to right field. Instead, the story should be about the absence of any other Padres among even the nominees, let alone the winners. 

The 2025 San Diego Padres were not a team built on the merits of their individual gloves. There wasn't a whole lot of turnover from a team that finished with a collective -15 FRV in '24 and were, again, constructed in such a way this past season to maximize their offensive output over defensive efficiency. There was improvement, at least, with a -1 FRV that stood 18th in the league in that regard. But it also seems noteworthy that the top FRV team in baseball was American League pennant winner Toronto (44), while the three teams directly behind them were also playing October baseball (mostly) for longer than San Diego (Chicago, Milwaukee, and Cleveland, respectively). 

That's not to say that defensive excellence is a prerequisite for overall success. But the Los Angeles Dodgers were, at least, average in FRV while sitting comfortably above average as far as other metrics go. As such, there's at least some semblance of improvement needed for the Padres on that side of the ball if they hope to keep pace with teams that made impressive runs this year. The issue, though, is where such improvement can actually take place in contrast for where such improvement is needed.

You know you've got Tatis Jr. in right field. You also know you have Jackson Merrill, who posted a FRV of five and Xander Bogaerts (seven) under contract moving forward. That's, at least, three spots where the glove work is steady. Elsewhere, though, the picture is a bit murkier. 

Going around the infield, you're going to have Freddy Fermin behind the plate. Catching metrics are their own world within the realm of defensive statistics, but he's better than anyone the team had for the majority of '25. First base saw Luis Arráez post a FRV of -4 as a near-full-time player for most of the year. Jake Cronenworth filled into an overall -1 FRV and -2 mark at his primary spot at the keystone. Manny Machado, meanwhile, went for a -4 FRV at third base. Next to Merrill & Tatis on the grass, Gavin Sheets was worth -1 in left field and even worse with the eye test. That is, ultimately, four spots where you're a below-average team on the defensive side of the ball. Worse yet is that there's only one vacancy.

First base is an easy area for the Padres to seek some defensive improvement. Arráez is unlikely to be back and the team isn't going to wade into the Pete Alonso waters that could bring an even lower defensive acumen to the cold corner. If the team sought an outside addition, old friend and free agent Josh Naylor lingered around average while trade candidate Willson Contreras was well above (four FRV). In house, Gavin Sheets was, technically, above average there across roughly 99 innings and could be a worthy plug-in given how he came on for much of the year with the bat. It stands to reason that you can rectify at least some infield issues with steadier play at first base. 

And that really should be a top-tier consideration here. Manny Machado isn't going anywhere. Nor is Xander Bogaerts and his lone defensive shortcoming, the 31st percentile arm strength. You can compensate for a lot by removing Arráez's glove from the equation and replacing it with one of a higher quality. The potential for an organic improvement wrought by one position isn't something that should be overlooked. 

That's especially because Cronenworth's issue lies in his range, and left field should be improved on the strength of the (assumedly) easy Ramón Laureano club option. First base isn't only the simplest means of improving the team's work on defense, but perhaps the most significant. 

Circling back to the premise at the top of these words, it isn't so much that the Padres are in need of more awards for their defense. There is a finite number of awards to be handed and 29 other teams across the league. Defensive awards are somewhat arbitrary in the first place. But that Tatis Jr. was the only player for which an argument could even be made speaks to the inefficiency this team demonstrated on that side of the ball in 2025. Considering some of the group's drawn-out offensive woes, you simply have to be better in order to support a pitching staff that can, at times, be forced into walking a tightrope. 

Luckily for the Padres, there's a clear path toward improvement. It resides at the first base bag.

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