The San Diego Padres will keep using Tatis at second baseman, which is one of the wilder stories of the young season.
The San Diego Padres tried a stunning experiment at second base over the weekend, and it worked. Fernando Tatis Jr. temporarily left his normal spot in right field to sub in at second base, and Tatis proceeded to make all the routine plays and go on an offensive tear.
That doesn’t mean this is necessarily a good idea, but the Padres don’t seem to care about that. They plan to keep using Tatis as a backup second baseman for the near future, which probably means until infielder Sung-Mun Song completes his rehab assignment after sustaining an oblique injury during the offseason.
AJ Cassavell of MLB.com has watched Tatis participate in infield drills before every home game, and the writer said that Tatis has mastered all of them. This isn’t surprising given that the Padres star came up as an infielder, but he’s ramped up his participation so that he’s now doing it on a near-daily basis.
Moreover, Tatis loves it, which is a big factor in the move.
“Just the quick action, the quick chances, staying on my feet,” Tatis said. “All of that.”
That’s a long way from doing it in a game, but that hasn't been a problem, either. Tatis made four routine plays on Saturday against the Colorado Rockies, according to Cassavell, and made all of them cleanly.
The primary goal with the move is to give shortstop Xander Bogaerts a day off, with Jake Cronenworth sliding over from second to short. The Padres stuck with the infield version of Tatis yesterday as well, and manager Craig Stammen explained how this will work going forward.
“[Tatis] is going to play right field most days,” said manager Craig Stammen. “But when Xander needs a day off or when Jake needs a day off, he’s probably our best option to play second base at the moment.”
Cassavell added that Tatis made plenty of throwing errors as a minor-league shortstop, and the Padres have always envisioned him as an elite outfielder. Tatis has backed that up by winning a pair of Platinum Glove Awards, but he does love the challenge.
“It’s probably a little bit -- I don’t want to say I’m more focused -- but it’s just more quick action in there,” Tatis said. “You’ve got double plays. You’ve got people on first, people on second. You just get more involved.”
Tatis is now 5-for-9 following the shift after struggling early, but Cassavell drew a reasonable conclusion from all this. If the goal is to maximize Tatis’ glove, he plays in the outfield. If you want to rest some of your middle infielders and you’re short on bench players who can do that well, then Tatis is a solid choice to do that a few times a month. If it helps him relax at the plate, the writer added, so much the better.
The plan makes sense with a buy-in from Tatis, but even he’s surprised at the way this has gone down so far.
“I didn’t quite believe it,” Tatis said about his reaction when Stammen initially approached him about the possibility. “But here we are.”