Randy Holt

Despite the fact that we still do not know which direction A.J. Preller and the San Diego Padres will head prior to the trade deadline, there is a case to be made that they should sell off at least a few pieces in order to start building more with the future in mind. Even if they do make a run at October, the construction of this team would benefit from some longer-term pieces that haven't already passed their primes. If the Padres do decide to sell, there are a number of candidates permeating the roster. Arms like Mason Miller, Michael King, Adrian Morejon, and a handful of others could head out from the pitching staff, while the likes of Ty France or Jake Cronenworth could be had for the right price on the positional side. Selling means that the Padres would be poised to being a reconstruction of their underwhelming farm system. As such, it's difficult to see too many names coming back that would immediately impact the major-league roster. That is, of course, barring any deal that includes current top-level talent in exchange for top-level talent or upper-minors talent from other clubs included as part of a deal that might've been blocked elsewhere. However, the Padres are going to need bodies to fill in for any departures, regardless of which level players are traded from. Obviously, the immediate pivot would be to veterans with prior major-league experience. Which means that it's more likely that we could see names in the system like Ty Adcock, Will Wagner, or Nick Solak added back into the equation before year's end. Those represent genuine bodies that could play out the rest of a year if the team punted on their postseason prospects (unlikely as that may be right now). However, there's also not a whole lot of intrigue with more known quantities that live on the fringes of the top level at this point in their respective careers. The real interest is in those who could be in line for a debut in 2026, with the potential to be a factor beyond it. As such, taking players of that ilk out of the equation, who from the system could get at least a cup of coffee post-deadline? Jagger Haynes (LHP, El Paso) Currently No. 13 in our list of the Padres' top prospects, Haynes was a fifth-round pick in the shortened 2020 draft and was just recently promoted to El Paso. He only has two short starts under his belt with the Chihuahuas with terrible results (18.00 ERA), but averaged 5.2 innings per start and a 4.37 ERA with Double-A San Antonio earlier this season. Those numbers aren't especially noteworthy, but Haynes offers specific context that could warrant a call-up before year's end, especially if slots in the pitching staff are vacated prior to the deadline. For one, he offers a slider and changeup that can be effective against hitters of both handedness. His command tends to lean a bit wonky, but he's had more success with each of those pitches than his largely average fastball that tops out in the mid-90s. That his command has been in question could have him carving out a role in relief rather than as a starter. That's the other factor here. Having multiple spots available on both ends of the pitching staff could afford the team with a chance to see where he best fits moving forward, if he fits at all. As Haynes is 23 and through a season of Rule 5 eligibility, the team may take the opportunity to see what his future holds. Considering his ability to provide volume, the team could choose to deploy him in a starting capacity down the stretch in lieu of the likes of Griffin Canning or Walker Buehler, with an eye on a potential relief role in 2027 should it not work out. Miguel Mendez (RHP, San Antonio) Mendez was a fast riser in 2025, moving from Low-A to Double-A before season's end. The results weren't especially terrific once he reached San Antonio, but he's looked much better since starting there at the outset of 2026. He's made 11 starts, with a 4.93 ERA and a more appealing 3.20 FIP. There's an interesting alignment here with Haynes in that Mendez also doesn't have a clearly defined role for the future; he's only reached five innings in a start twice this season. However, Mendez does present the organization with quite a bit more upside in terms of the stuff, with a strikeout rate near 25 percent courtesy of a fastball that lives in the mid-to-upper 90s and combines with an effective slider. That stuff could make him just intriguing enough to warrant a call-up as the Padres work to carve out a role for him moving forward. His command has steadily improved, though the team may like him more as a reliever given his history of shakiness in that aspect of his game. If the Padres move on from any of their higher profile arms, it's entirely possible we see Mendez get a call to bring his fastball-slider combination to replace whatever upside is lost at the deadline. Dropping that combo into leverage in lower stakes games could be a solid showcase. He's already on the 40-man, too. Marcos Castañon (IF, El Paso) It's more difficult to find position players that merit a call-up for showcase purposes than it is to find an arm. If the Padres were to recall a fresh face on the positional side, Castañon may be the most logical choice. The 2021 12th-round pick from UC Santa Barbara is in the midst of a below-average offensive season by wRC+ (81), but has put together a respectable .279/.327/.443 line across more than 325 plate appearances this season. He's also cut his strikeout rate by nearly 10 percent since last year. The catch here is that it's been a couple of years since Castañon found his name on any prospect list for the Padres given his lack of a clear position and waning upside with the bat. Nevertheless, that he's been able to move around the field even in 2026 — logging time at first, second, and third base — while improving his contact skills could make him a worthwhile replacement for someone like Ty France or Gavin Sheets, should either one be traded prior to the deadline. At the very least, he reads as the kind of player sort of at the end of his run up through the system, and it may behoove the Padres to see if he's capable of hanging around as a bench bat in the future. View full article

Heading into the final weekend before the MLB trade deadline, we still don't know whether the San Diego Padres plan to buy or sell. They're just outside of wild card spot in the National League, but the handful of teams within their range makes even that relatively narrow gap a difficult one to traverse. Mason Miller's role within either route only makes those waters all the more murky. We don't know whether or not A.J. Preller is seriously entertaining the idea of moving his all-world closer, even if he does take the seller's path. San Diego's precarious positioning within the broader National League context makes a general narrative around it easier to justify from the outside, though, with Miller's value at present only adding to a potential rationale. There has not been a better relief pitcher in baseball in 2026 than the Padres' closer. He sits atop the relief pitcher leaderboard in fWAR (2.9), FIP (0.44), and strikeout rate (49.4 percent) while also ranking in the top three in ERA (0.79) His slider represents perhaps the best individual pitch in the sport, helping him to a 98th percentile standing in chase rate (38 percent) while also residing in the 100th in whiff rate (48%). As few certainties as this Padres roster has possessed this season, Miller has been perhaps the most certain thing in the game. Even with their questionable standing in the NL playoff picture, trading Mason Miller is in no way something that the Padres have to do. Despite the fact that he sits atop DiamondCentric's list of the top trade candidates, he remains under team control through 2029. Even if the Friars were not to make an appearance in this year's postseason, it stands to reason that they could find their way back well within the timeframe in which he's a part of the organization. Perhaps even with an eye on moving him into a starting role before his team control runs out, as we heard throughout the offseason. Whether they should move Miller prior to August 3, however, represents a different query altogether. When the Padres acquired Miller last season, they were forced to surrender one of the sport's top prospects in Leo De Vries, along with Braden Nett, Henry Baez, and Eduarnial Núñez. That trade accounts for three of the Athletics' top 13 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline. The Padres, at present, were ranked 30th by that outlet back in March while currently residing in the same position per FanGraphs' farm system rankings. No matter what source one was to utilize, this team currently sports a prospect pipeline that sits at or near the bottom of the league. A trade of Miller would go a ways toward improving that standing. As much of a bump as the A's were able to get in trading Miller, it's possible that the Padres could exceed their own previous package given his 2026 dominance and remaining team control. And that's important considering some of the team's shortcomings and aging components of their roster. There is very little at the upper levels of the minors to help their woes on the starting pitching front or to aid in supplementing their veteran position players that are either underperforming or nearing the painful end of their contracts. If the Padres are content to call it good on 2026, then trading Miller helps them turn their attention to a more medium and long-term arc while giving them a foundation of prospects that could serve as a springboard to either. What's particularly fascinating about a potential trade of Miller, though, is that the team doesn't have to be a seller in order to justify it. This is a team capable of developing high-leverage arms. Names like Robert Suárez, Jason Adam, Adrian Morejon, and Jeremiah Estrada are among those who have raised their profile in the last couple of seasons in serving as late-inning relief. There's a realistic pathway to trading Miller while still remaining in contention. Such a scenario would likely see at least one major-league caliber starting pitcher coming back with a name like Adam or Morejon (assuming neither is also traded) sliding into ninth inning work in Miller's stead. Such a move theoretically would allow San Diego to remain relevant in the National League while also addressing their largest shortcoming this season. Considering either pathway, there is a very real justification for trading Mason Miller. If the Padres are selling, Miller helps them to ignite a farm system revamp in the most impactful way. If they're leaning the other direction, Miller can help them address their current roster in a way that almost no other individual player could. It would be a tough piece of business for A.J. Preller to sell to the fanbase considering Miller's profile and his performance, but there is at least reason to believe it's the best path forward. View full article

While a multi-game deficit and a handful of teams ahead of them in the National League Wild Card race isn't the most ideal set of circumstances for the San Diego Padres, their weekend sweep of the Miami Marlins likely gave A.J. Preller all the clearance he needed to work in an additive direction ahead of next week's trade deadline. With only the lowly Colorado and San Francisco organizations standing in their way prior to August 3, the expectation is that the Friars fancy themselves buyers at the present moment. It's at least a mildly more encouraging picture than last week, when we didn't any level of clarity over which direction the team could head. Buying doesn't necessarily mean keeping all of their current major-league talent, however. There's a path where the team trades one of their high-leverage relievers (Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon) with an eye on adding starting pitching and catapulting themselves square into the middle of the NL Wild Card race. And that's an important note within all of this. The Padres don't have an upper-tier farm system; in fact, their minor-league talent pool generally ranks among the league's worst (if not at the very bottom). Even within the context of buying, Preller is likely going to have to move impact talent if he seeks to add impact talent in turn. That means that even buying is going to result in someone like Miller or Morejon finding their way to a new organization in the name of improvement elsewhere. While those aren't the only appealing names the team has on their roster, it feels like at least one would have to go for the necessary improvements to be made to other areas of the team. With that in mind, which prospective trade partner represents the most ideal organization with which to strike a deal? The Milwaukee Brewers are a team that immediately springs to mind. This is for two reasons. The first is that they can offer the Padres at least one major-league caliber starting pitcher in a trade for one of Miller or Morejon. Someone like Logan Henderson represents exactly the type of arm the Padres would covet. He's having an exceptional year (3.05 ERA, 2.98 FIP in eight starts) pitching in the latter half of the Brewers' rotation and isn't even eligible for arbitration until 2029. There are other arms that could be appealing here (Robert Gasser, Coleman Crow), but Henderson and some combination of prospects would be an ideal path given the Padres' current shortcomings in their starting staff. The prospect component represents the other reason Milwaukee is such an ideal trade partner. The Brewers have a system lauded by essentially every outlet, with six prospects inside of MLB Pipeline's Top 100. While we wouldn't necessarily expect one of those six in a potential deal alongside an upside play like Henderson, it speaks to the strength of their system to have such a consistent presence throughout that list. Overall, it's a team with which the Padres have a transactional history and can help to fill a need. The Brewers are in need of some starting pitching help in their own right given injuries, but they're also in search of relief help. If the Padres were to part with one of Miller or Morejon, then a move here presents plenty of logic for both parties (with room for either to seek out other organizations for additional needs). In a similar vein, the New York Yankees could represent the type of organization that represents the ideal partner for Preller. Like the Brewers, the Padres have a history of trades with the Yankees (the Juan Soto deal being most notable among them). And, like Milwaukee, New York has the ability to provide the Padres with what they need ahead of this deadline. The dynamic is only slightly different. On the minor-league side of things, the Yankees do not boast the farm system depth that the Brewers have. What they do have, though, is pitching in abundance. Roughly 20 of the team's top 30 prospects come from the mound, with many featuring an ETA of 2026 or 2027. Could a package involving someone like Will Warren and additional minor=league arms make sense in a deal? Absolutely, but that would also come at a similar expense in that the Padres would be likely to part with Miller or Morejon in such a scenario. It's similar contexts and similar needs from both New York & Milwaukee, which would then come down to which minor-league system Preller and the scouting department favor more. That doesn't mean those are the only two teams worth watching out for ahead of Aug. 3. Nor does any trade for impact mean that Preller will be forced to send Miller or Morejon the opposite way; it just feels like the most efficient way of shifting the fortunes of the current roster. Preller could also approach Detroit about Casey Mize, the Mets about someone like Clay Holmes, or the Royals (another team with which there's a recent transactional history) about old friends Michael Wacha & Seth Lugo. Options exist here toward improving the Padres' most vulnerable phase of their roster. But if we're talking about the type of deal Preller loves to make — the one where he gets to turn the baseball world on its head — then facilitating a deal with the Milwaukee Brewers or New York Yankees is the best bet. View full article

The concept of a mess is not unique to any particular facet of the 2026 San Diego Padres roster. They've struggled to piece together starts on the mound, have received mixed performances from virtually every hitter, and have had to handle injury issues with nearly everyone of note. The result of so much clutter, though, is that the mess behind the plate has gone somewhat overlooked. Freddy Fermin entered the season as the team's No. 1 catcher. After sending Stephen Kolek & Ryan Bergert to the Kansas City Royals prior to last year's trade deadline, it was clear that A.J. Preller was acquiring his top option for the handful of years Fermin remains under team control. With the team unable (or unwilling) to add a suitable backup last winter, Luis Campusano was set to assume duties as the No. 2. As we sit here at the end of July, that's still how things look. Getting here, though, is where the mess comes in. The Padres rank 16th in the league in fWAR accrued by their catchers (1.3). Much of that is propped up by the defensive work of the group, given that the team sits 21st in wRC+ (79) and in the bottom five teams in the league in terms of batting average (.187) and on-base percentage (.283). Fermin has played in only 66 games. He missed time in June while out on the concussion injured list before heading back to the regular IL earlier this month with a head contusion. Campusano missed two months with a fractured toe and has logged time in just 34 contests. That meant that the team's catching picture also featured Rodolfo Durán for 36 games and Blake Hunt for another two over the course of this season. With things now settled back into featuring Fermin & Campusano, the conversation can take on another turn in pondering whether it should be Campusano atop the depth chart with Fermin as the backup. Such a conversation would be a far cry from where we found ourselves last winter. Fermin as the starter was a sentiment that went undisputed given his defensive competence and a solid stretch of play upon his acquisition from Kansas City. At the same time, few believed that Campusano merited such a guarantee as the Friars' top reserve behind the plate, as he struggled to realize his offensive upside and was coming off some woeful defensive marks the last time we saw him log regular work at the major-league level back in 2024. It speaks to the gravity of the struggles of the former and the growth of the latter, then, that we're even entertaining this conversation. But that's where we find ourselves with a No. 1, in Fermin, that has worked to a line of only .164/.259/.276, with a 54 wRC+. While he's posted a career-best 9.6 percent walk rate, he's struck out at his highest clip since 2023 (19.8 percent). There's been the occasional impact, indicated by a .112 ISO that is better than either of the last two years, but his offensive performance has been too riddled with soft contact and strikeouts for it to have any sort of sustained realization. On the other side of things, Campusano is in the midst of an offensive breakout. It remains a small sample given the injury (107 plate appearances), but his line reads .286/.393/.505 with a gaudy 152 wRC+. His 23.4 percent strikeout rate is reasonable against a 14 percent walk rate, especially when you factor in the power output. Had he been healthy over a full season, we'd likely be framing Campusano as one of the team's best hitters in 2026. As it is, his offensive output is one that far exceeds that of his counterpart behind the plate. General narratives around each player would tell us that a justification for keeping Fermin entrenched as the starter over Campusano would be due to his defense. Fermin's chops with the glove have, historically, been far better than the work we've seen from his teammate. After all, the last time we saw Campusano behind the plate regularly was when he turned in a -13 Fielding Run Value. This season, Fermin has a FRV of +5. He's been good across the board, turning in at least average marks in each phase that is considered for the position (framing, blocking, throwing). On the other hand, Campusano is at -4 FRV. He's improved his framing metric from -8 to -4 while providing exactly average work with respect to blocking and throwing. In choosing to give more runway to Campusano as the starter over Fermin, you'd be sacrificing some defense. However, it's important to note that such sacrifice is not remotely what it would have been two years ago. You lose something of note when it comes to framing, very little in the other two areas, and then more than make up the difference offensively considering where the two currently reside with the bat. The extent to which Craig Stammen is willing to explore that tradeoff remains to be seen. For what it's worth, FanGraphs likes Campusano's share of the work behind the plate to exceed that of Fermin's, giving him 48 percent of the time to Fermin's 42 percent start share. Baseball Prospectus, though, has Fermin at 55 percent of the work to Campusano's 30. Here in reality, they've split the work evenly over the last six contests. It's entirely possible Stammen is ready to lean into a new workload distribution. Depending on what goes down over the next week leading up to the trade deadline, simply inserting Campusano into the starting lineup more frequently could be one of the biggest additions the Padres make. View full article

The San Diego Padres are still alive. Despite their best efforts over the last handful of weeks, their sweep of the Miami Marlins over the weekend set them back at .500 (53-53). That put them back to within two games of a National League Wild Card spot, though three teams remain ahead of them before they even get to the likes of those currently occupying the three spots in Chicago, Philadelphia, and Arizona. Nevertheless, they're still hanging around. That doesn't lend itself to any clarity regarding their approach to the trade deadline, but it does draw the attention back to the active roster. Because the Padres wouldn't be in a position to have any hope, let alone a thinner margin, at this point if it weren't for those players. Specifically, we're talking about Jackson Merrill. Merrill was a centerpiece over the weekend sweep in Florida. He had a three-hit game on Saturday before adding another two on Sunday. Few actions were more notable over the weekend than this: Down early, Merrill's solo home run in the eighth gave them a lead they wouldn't relinquish. It was the latest in what has become a very strong July for a player who had struggled mightily over the season's first three months. This is Merrill's monthly distribution from the first half of the season: March/April: 128 PA, .200/.270/.330, .130 ISO, 68 wRC+ May: 101 PA, .220/.297/.341, .121 ISO, 79 wRC+ June: 114 PA, .220/.248/.358, .138 ISO, 67 wRC+ To say that the young center fielder struggled in those first three months would be a severe understatement. Had he posted numbers of this variety in 2025, you could almost understand it given the myriad injuries he encountered. However, a fully healthy iteration of Merrill is one that was expected to bounce back. That didn't remotely come to fruition in the first half; there were a couple of modest stretches where it looked like a corner was being turned, but the production stayed minimal. Frustratingly, there didn't appear to be a clear cause for the struggle either. Some mixed up mechanics appeared to be central, but even those weren't as clear-cut as we'd like it to be. Perhaps it doesn't matter anymore. Merrill has turned a corner in July to a fairly astonishing extent. As the Padres' offense has stabilized, Merrill has been one of the drivers of the lineup this month. Through an even 90 plate appearances, he's carrying a slash of .298/.333/.571, with a gaudy .274 ISO and a 147 wRC+. His strikeout rate (23.3 percent) is his lowest in an individual month while the seven homers he's hit are only one off his cumulative total from the first three months of the season. What's important to note about this stretch is that he isn't getting lucky. His .316 batting average on balls in play isn't the kind of nonsense figure you might expect from a struggling player suddenly breaking out. Nor is it the result of any massive shift in his mechanics. There is one component worth noting here, however: Previously, we discussed that Merrill's swing had become just long and just steep enough to pose an issue for him. That was leading to questionable contact that wasn't adept at creating impact. In other words, he was simply losing on the margins. It's clear that Merrill is now finding that contact, whether he's done so by way of improved pitch recognition or a small mechanical tweak. That rate of his ideal attack angle is every bit indicative of a player who is finding the bat in the right spot upon meeting the ball. The next step in this is making it sustainable. We don't know the reason for Merrill's 2026 trends of swinging longer, swinging harder, or swinging with enough of an increase in his angle that he ended up a shade under seemingly everything. What we do know right now is that he's making everything click. In order for the Padres to stay relevant, that will have to remain the case. View full article

Whether they needed to be deployed due to injury or poor performance, the San Diego Padres have made heavy use of their positional depth in 2026. Of course, that's not necessarily a positive when your depth is as thin as theirs has been. And when you're cycling through said options in rapid succession, that's indicative of some questions about the personnel in place. This is a team that has, at times, sent Nick Castellanos, Will Wagner, Bryce Johnson, Samad Taylor, Sung-Mun Song, and Jase Bowen into the field in spots that weren't behind the plate. Many have been responsible for mixed (or outright bad) results, and not all of the names listed made it very long. It's forced Craig Stammen to roll with starters who were otherwise struggling through periods in which he may want to give them at least the occasional rest. Emerging from that turmoil, though, it's possible that the team finally may have the piece they need in the form of Luis Rengifo. Signed by the Milwaukee Brewers ahead of the season, Rengifo was expected to play an important role in their infield picture this season. That didn't happen. Rengifo slashed just .205/.280/.254 during his time in the National League Central. He posted a wRC+ of just 51 (second-worst, ahead of only Blake Perkins in that stretch) and was worth -0.7 fWAR. The Brewers designated him for assignment towards the end of June. Thus far, Milwaukee's loss appears to be the Padres' gain. In need of serviceable depth, especially on the infield, Rengifo has been nothing short of spectacular since his arrival. Rengifo's slash through his first 30-ish plate appearances in San Diego reads .433/.485/.667. His wRC+ sits at an absurd 221 mark. His two home runs in a Padre uniform account for the only two he's hit all year. While Rengifo is still hitting the ball on the ground a fair bit (58.3 percent), he's begun to elevate enough while mixing in opposite field contact (37.5 Oppo%) in a way that is yielding some pretty impressive results. The team's collective offense has looked much better the last few weeks, and while Rengifo's addition isn't the only reason, it's still a factor. Of course, the massive caveat within all of that is that we're still talking about a sample of 33 plate appearances. As much as we'd like to make grand statements about a player thriving after a change of scenery, that's not enough volume to speak within any realm of certainty. Nevertheless, the addition of Rengifo could remain an important one for the Padres. This is a player with a solid track record as recently as 2024, before a wrist injury ended his season prematurely. Therein, he hit .300, provided occasional power (.117 ISO), and stole 24 bases. That's the type of skill set the Friars' infield could use. If even moderately sustainable, Rengifo can hang at second base, third base, and make the occasional cameo at shortstop or in the outfield. Such a player affords more days as a designated hitter for Manny Machado and provides some flexibility with how Stammen utilizes Jake Cronenworth. As Sung-Mun Song, in particular, continues to adjust to Major League Baseball, Rengifo also has the ability to provide something of a buffer for his transition. The team doesn't have to force Song into spots that could stall his development, instead opting for more of a veteran presence off the bench. Again, the sample we're working with doesn't offer any sort of promise that Luis Rengifo's current stretch will extend into any long-term picture. But he's been a crucial piece of their offense here in July, with a skill set that helps to provide a depth component to numerous positions on the depth chart. As much as the team has struggled to make their non-guaranteed additions work throughout other areas of the roster, Rengifo looks like an early win... for now. View full article

There has been no shortage of weird and/or frustrating storylines for the San Diego Padres in 2026. Exceeding almost all of them, though, was the perplexing manner of Fernando Tatis Jr.'s early season power outage. It wasn't that Tatis was slumping across April and May. In fact, he was quite good. His batting average ran at .250 and .284 each month, respectively, while reaching base at rates of .323 and .360 over that span. Even better was the fact that he progressively cut down his strikeout rate between the two, maintained a walk rate over nine percent, and was a contributor on the basepaths. Of course, the broader narrative centered around the fact that, within all of that, his power was nowhere to be found. In the season's opening month, Tatis Jr's isolated power number read just .036. He followed that up with a .069 mark in May. As far as the raw count goes, he had four extra-base hits in March/April and three in May. Most notable was the fact that he went more than 50 games and well over 200 plate appearances before his first home run of the season, which occurred in May 30. That's two months of no long balls for the Padres hitter with the highest upside and a track record of upper-tier offensive performance. Theories abounded for what was causing such a stifling of the power side of his game. Most of them centered around something mechanical, notably in the form of timing or his swing path. The quality of contact was there all season, but the results didn't follow in terms of the impact. Until June and now into July. Tatis' more comprehensive skill set has continued to manifest over these last two months. His line included a .318 average & .356 on-base percentage in June and a .265 average & .365 OBP thus far in July. The power, however, is what has been particularly notable. After a minimal output on the ISO side in the first two months, Tatis Jr saw that figure climb to .191 in June. It's at .193 this month, highlighted by the longest home run in Major League Baseball in 2026 last week. A 27-degree launch angle, 111 MPH off the bat with a bat speed of 82.2 MPH culminating in 474 feet of power. Tatis appears to be back in a real John Wick sort of way. That's just the latest example, though, as Tatis' raw numbers featured nine doubles and four homers in June before his nine extra-base hits in July so far. Which means that after eight total extra-base hits spread across the first two months, he's more than doubled it since. With such a turnaround in this facet of his game, there are obviously going to be some embedded mechanical tweaks. For Tatis, the most notable ones have come in the form of his footwork. This is his stance through the end of May: And this is Tatis in June and through the first three weeks of July: The change is apparent in that his stance has become something much more akin to what we've seen from him in previous seasons with the open stance. So it's no surprise that his pull rate is up near 50 percent (49.1) in July after lingering in the low-30s in May & June. In addition to opening back up, Tatis has adjusted his swing path. Through the end of April, his attack angle was six degrees, rising to seven by the end of May. In these last two months, it's up at eight. His rate of an ideal attack angle has risen about eight percent between those two-month splits, resting at 59.5 percent in the latter half of the season so far. His bat speed is also up between each segment, rising from 74.5 MPH in the first two months to 76.8 MPH in the latter two. We know that Pull-AIR% has become a crucial component for hitters to generate power. Tatis' 7.8 percent rate in that regard was the Padres' worst through the end of May. It's at 11.1 percent since the start of June. That hasn't put him into elite company by any means, but it's not as if the launch angle itself has seen a dramatic steepening, either. This is all about margins. Tatis has been a very good hitter in 2026. He's just had to do his damage more methodically thanks to a power outage. His mechanics early sacrificed nearly all of the power for the sake of line drive contact. It was an overcorrection with an unknown origin. The changes we're seeing got him opened up and just level enough to begin tapping into more regular power. It's the slight changes across his attack angle and bat speed that have allowed him to rediscover elements of his power without the expense of everything else he was doing well. The line-drive hitter is still there in between the manifestation of impact contact, but that also shouldn't be looked upon as a negative either. Instead, we're looking at a player who made just enough of an adjustment to continue his crucial role as a top-of-the-order hitter capable of hitting or walking his way on base for (in an ideal world) the other drivers of the offense coming up behind him, especially when you factor in his baserunning prowess. This is the purest form of Fernando Tatis Jr. The exceptional hitter and threat on the bases capable of extreme power when the opportunity presents itself. As the Padres attempt to remain afloat in the National League playoff picture, it couldn't have come at a more ideal time. View full article

When the San Diego Padres signed Gavin Sheets ahead of the 2025 season, it was as a non-guaranteed flier. Those kind of things tend to happen when you underperform over multiple years with a woeful Chicago White Sox club. When the White Sox non-tendered Sheets following the 2024 season, the two parties were in very different spots. Sheets impressed across a 179 plate appearances cup of coffee back in 2021, posting a .250/.324/.506 line and 123 wRC+ for a team that won the American League Central. His performance began to wane a bit in 2022, as he fell just under the average threshold by way of wRC+ (99), and it tailed off entirely over the next two seasons as Sheets and the Sox fell to the depths of the league in rather historic fashion. For their part, the Sox have ascended back to relevance here in 2026. Sheets, however, didn't need to wait as long. Upon his departure from the South Side, he landed in San Diego for a team starved for any supplementary bats they could find ahead of last season. The returns there were solid. In his first season with the Padres, Sheets went for a .252/.317/.429 line. His wRC+ was back up at 111 while his .177 ISO was his best power output since that initial call-up in Chicago. There was something of an evolution that occurred as he adjusted to his new surroundings, too. After striking out more than 26 percent of the time in the opening month of 2025, Sheets progressively improved his ability to make contact throughout the year. He maxed out on output in August when he hit over .400, managed a strikeout rate under 18 percent, and ISO'd a gaudy .333. That, of course, came over a somewhat smaller sample (51 PA) due to injury, so it was unreasonable to expect that iteration of Sheets to carry over into 2026. The total body of work, though, is what's carried between seasons. These last two years have given us some clarity as to the type of player that Sheets actually is. His last two seasons in Chicago were indicative of a player struggling to generate any level of consistency in the power game, which was a perception that didn't lend itself to much merit given his stature (6'3", 235 lbs). While his overall ability to make contact never really waned, his ability to make it of a certain quality definitely did, with a great deal of inconsistency in his overall swing trends. As that evolution manifested over 2025, the continued sample we've gained in 2026 has given us a firm picture of who Gavin Sheets is as a hitter. Sheets' .217/.318/.408 line is somewhat deceptive given a .242 batting average on balls in play that is ahead of only his 2023 campaign as the lowest of his career. Even through that, he remains an above average hitter by wRC+ (105), with a 21.6 percent strikeout rate that falls in line with his career norm and an 11.7 percent walk rate that sits above it. What's important is that everything we saw at his heights as 2025 progressed has stabilized, if not improved altogether. Despite the poor batted ball fortune, Sheets has been doing virtually everything right. His swing rate in each of his two seasons in San Diego has been the lowest of his career, and his contact rate (81.4 percent) in 2026 sits as a career best. His quality-of-contact rates with the Padres have been at their best since that 2021 season, with a 46.5 Hard-Hit% in 2025 and a 40.4 percent mark this season. What's rather beautiful about all of this is that this clarity we've gained around Sheets has emerged because of the simplicity of his offensive game. Sheets isn't a player that actively seeks out power at the expense of everything else. Instead, he has a quietly effective approach that helps to stabilize him as an on-base presence in between bouts of impact contact. His overall contact ability is deceptive for a player of his profile, too. The noise around him might be a whole lot louder were it now for the run of bad luck he's experienced on the BABIP side of things this year. That steadiness is an element that goes a bit overlooked on a team like the Padres that feature so much streakiness embedded into their offensive approach. Sure, you'd like the output to be better, but it's also clear that's not entirely the fault of Sheets and his run up against bad luck. Stability can be an undervalued trait in a hitter, and the way we've watched Sheets adjust from his aggressive self at the outset of his Friars tenure into a patient, calculated hitter is an encouraging tale for a team seemingly reliant on star power. View full article