among the best athletes and defensive right fielders<\/a> in baseball. He won Gold Glove and Platinum Glove awards in 2023 and 2025. The former shortstop also possesses some experience at second base, having made a late-game appearance there in September 2023 and 10 starts at the position early in his minor-league career.<\/p>\nStammen, Tatis\u2019 former teammate, raised the idea of occasional returns to second base after he became the team\u2019s manager during the offseason. At the time, Tatis said Saturday, he wasn\u2019t sure if Stammen truly meant it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t take it that serious,\u201d Tatis said, laughing. \u201cBut here we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stammen indicated that the Padres feel the new challenge could provide a secondary benefit. Tatis, a two-time Silver Slugger, is experiencing the worst offensive start of his career. He has logged a .519 OPS through 14 games, even as his underlying statistics suggest a fair amount of poor luck.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe him concentrating on playing second base unlocks him at the plate, he stops thinking so much about it and just uses his natural talent to take over,\u201d Stammen said. \u201c(Friday) night, he had two more balls that were hit over 100 (mph) and had nothing to show for it. \u2026 I think we can tell that he\u2019s getting a little frustrated that none of those hits are falling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatis occasionally took ground balls at second base last season. Working with infield coaches Ryan Goins and Nick Punto, he started drilling daily last month in preparation for a potential cameo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can play whatever,\u201d Tatis said. \u201cI\u2019m just here to play baseball and be a good baseball player.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking forward to the challenge and embracing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatis began his career as a shortstop but has not played there since his 2023 return from multiple arm surgeries and a PED suspension.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a shortstop who is going to be here for a long time,\u201d Stammen said of Bogaerts, who, like Tatis, is under contract well into the next decade. \u201cAnd not like Jake\u2019s not going to be here for a long time, either. But we feel like Jake did a great job of playing shortstop last season, and whenever Xander needs a day, we feel more comfortable with Croney playing shortstop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tatis will continue as the Padres\u2019 primary right fielder. How often he\u2019ll appear at second base remains to be determined. Saturday is his first audition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWill he be perfect, like the best second baseman of all time? He might be, but you never know,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cWe\u2019ll see. But I\u2019m not that worried about Fernando Tatis Jr. playing second base.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2014 Platinum Glove right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. will make his first career start at second…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":721597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,1306,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-721596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-san-diego-padres","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=721596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}