Fernando Tatis Jr. Is Opening New Avenues for Padres With His Play At Second Base

[TomCent]

The San Diego Padres’ decision in April to make Fernando Tatis Jr. their backup second baseman bordered on bizarre. The club was putting a Platinum Glove outfielder back in the middle of the infield after moving him off it three years ago, and onto the opposite side of the bag, at that. 

The move resembled the Boston Red Sox's shuttling of Ceddanne Rafaela between the outfield and infield to solve a roster crunch problem. In other words, the Padres appeared to be admitting their 2026 roster was constructed poorly. They chose DH/corner players Nick Castellanos and Ty France over a true middle-infield backup. In April, the club kept offseason acquisition Sung Mun Song at Triple-A El Paso after his rehab from a spring training side injury was complete.

Tatis' early games at the keystone made the skeptics look right. His footwork was poor and he made bad decisions. In early May, the objections grew louder after he passed on turning a routine 5-4-3 double play against the Chicago White Sox to try to throw Chase Meidroth out at home. The ball sailed high and wide toward the backstop.

In the month since that play, a lot has changed. France is now a valuable platoon first baseman, Castellanos is out of the picture, Song is glued to the bench, and Tatis has become the everyday second baseman with Jake Cronenworth on the seven-day concussion injured list. Tatis started 13 consecutive games at second before starting in right field for the Padres’ series finale against the Washington Nationals last weekend. Overall, he has made 25 starts at second and 33 in right.

He still isn't a smooth infielder, but his athletic ability allows him to get the job done, similar to when he played shortstop. In fact, he's the club's best second baseman based on metrics.

Suffice it to say, his bosses are impressed.

“He's definitely turning into one of the best second basemen in all of baseball,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said last week after Tatis handled all 10 of his chances (two putouts, eight assists) cleanly in the team's 3-0 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies. “I think he's taken something that looked normal to him and (is) making it look spectacular, just like he does about everything else,."

A first-year manager gushing about a club leader should be taken with a large grain of salt, but the stats and even the hated eye test do back up Stammen's claims.

Tatis had played 200 innings at second base. He had been charged with zero errors, but that stat hasn't been an acceptable fielding measure for years. The metrics matter most now, and the primary ones were largely positive. Among second basemen with at least 200 innings played at the position, Tatis was tied for fourth in the majors with a plus-4 fielding run value (FRV), tied for fifth with five outs above average (OAA) and tied for 15th with one defensive run saved (DRS). Three of the four FRV runs came from his range, also tied for sixth. (FRV and OAA figures per Baseball Savant, DRS figure per Fangraphs.)

Those numbers put him well ahead of Cronenworth and Song:

Player	Inn	FRV	OAA	DRS
Fernando Tatis Jr.	200	4	5	1
Jake Cronenworth	254	1	0	-1
Sung Mun Song	62	-1	-1	-1

And here is another comparison: Tatis has been much better by the metrics than Rafaela was at second last year. Rafaela posted a zero FRV, zero OAA and one DRS in 165 innings.

So, how is Tatis putting up these numbers if his movements aren't the most sure? An athletic play in the seventh inning of that Wednesday game helps to provide the answer. He used his outfield savvy and speed to range into shallow right, make an over-the-shoulder catch and rob the Phillies’ Alec Bohm of a single.

His lateral range is expansive, too. Twice against the Phillies, he charged in and to his right, ending up on the shortstop side of the bag, to field a slow bouncer. He  threw accurately on the move to get the out. Twice, he ranged far to his left to flag down a grounder in the hole before making an accurate throw to first to complete the out. He was quick in starting a pair.of 4-6-3 double plays.

While Tatis is helping the club when he's on the infield, there is a tradeoff: the outfield defense suffers badly when he's not out there. Tatis is still a high-end right fielder, while Castellanos and Ramon Laureano, his most frequent fill-ins up to this point, are below average:

Player	Inn	FRV	OAA	DRS
Fernando Tatis Jr.	298	3	3	-1
Nick Castellanos	147	-3	-2	-3
Ramon Laureano	43	-1	-1	1
Bryce Johnson	28	0	0	0

Now that the club trusts Tatis with second base, what should it do with Cronenworth once he returns from the IL? He's in the third year of a seven-year, $80 million contract extension, but he’s coming off two seasons of negative defensive metrics and hasn't hit (47 wRC+) this season. He also has made a start each at short and third in 2026. The negatives point to him potentially losing playing time. Making him an $11 million utility player would be more bad roster management, but the Padres might need to do it if they want to give France and Song (by moving him to the outfield) more opportunities to improve one of baseball's worst offenses. At the very least, Tatis' infield defense has opened that avenue.

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