Fernando Tatis Jr. is back in the majors. The Padres officially reinstated him from the restricted list following the completion of his performance-enhancing drug suspension on Thursday evening. San Diego optioned infielder/outfeilder Brandon Dixon to Triple-A El Paso to open room on the big league roster. The Friars transferred reliever Robert Suarez from the 15-day to the 60-day injured list.
Tatis steps into the leadoff spot tonight against Arizona right-hander Ryne Nelson. He’ll play right field in his first MLB contest since October 3, 2021. Tatis is expected to play right field on a near everyday basis in 2023. He lost his former shortstop position when San Diego inked Xander Bogaerts to a $280MM free agent contract over the winter. With Ha-Seong Kim, Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado rounding out the infield, Tatis gets kicked onto the grass.
While there’ll certainly be some intrigue about how he acclimates to a position at which he has just 151 1/3 innings of MLB experience, the primary question will be how quickly he finds his stride offensively. Tatis was one of the game’s best hitters over his first three seasons, combining to hit .282/.364/.611 between 2019-21. By measure of wRC+, that was the ninth-best offensive output among batters with at least 500 plate appearances.
Whether the 24-year-old can recapture that kind of production remains to be seen. Since his last MLB game, he’s undergone three surgeries — two on the left wrist he fractured in a motorcycle accident, one on his left shoulder that had ailed him back to 2021. He also tested positive for the performance-enhancing drug Clostebol and was handed an 80-game suspension at the start of last August. That carried into this season, with Tatis sitting out the Friars’ first 20 games. San Diego has opened with a middling 9-11 start, allowing ten more runs than they’ve scored.
Tatis was permitted to play in Spring Training. He got into 16 exhibition games, hitting .273/.340/.432. Shortly after the regular season opened, Tatis went on a rehab stint with El Paso. He was the best hitter in the Pacific Coast League for a week. Tatis blasted seven home runs, walked six times and struck out on just three occasions in eight games. He hit .515/.590/1.212 in 39 trips to the plate for the Chihuahuas before reporting to the Padres a few days ago.
Players on the restricted list don’t count against the 40-man roster. To clear a spot, San Diego transferred Suarez to the 60-day IL. That backdates to his Opening Day placement on the injured list but still officially rules him out until the final week in May.
Suarez opened the season on the IL with inflammation in his throwing elbow. He was shut down from throwing at the start of this month after feeling continued discomfort and is without a clear recovery timetable. It’s an inauspicious start to the five-year, $46MM contract he inked at the start of last offseason. The hard-throwing Suarez provided the Padres 47 2/3 innings of 2.27 ERA ball during his initial MLB campaign last year, emerging as one of their highest-leverage relievers by the playoffs.
Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s out of baseball before he’s 27. He just doesn’t have what it takes to be a major league player without the steroids.
Put him in with the other hotdog (soto) we got ourselves a cookout!
Pretty dumb statement. You don’t know if he has ever played a game on roids and you don’t know what he will do now.
@Simm…
He’s good at pretty dumb statements.
So you think the padres will walk away from over 300 million in the next three years of his 14 year contract. I don’t think you thought that statement through.
Ridiculous
Just so happy that the ringworm has cleared up, and he can now resume all baseball activities.
Nice one, Cap’n!
Yeah, cuz NY has never had any issues in the past…
@Little, I hope this is a poor attempt at sarcasm. If not maybe discussing baseball with others just is not for you.
He/It’s a silly little twit.
Bronxmac77 – True, but I think you got a vowel mixed up.
Heh heh heh heh…
Uhhh…. “He hit .515/.590/1.212 in 39 trips to the plate”…. you must be one of those people we see doing dumb stuff when you don’t realize a camera is recording you?
He walks into the OUT door.
You forgot the /s
Over/under on games played before he’s on IL?
25.5
102, at least that is what you can get in Las Vegas
This guy was a non prospect before he started loading up his body with steroids and growing into a freak show. Gonna be the worst contract of all time.
So…as an 18 year old in the mimors when he hit 275 with 22 hr..thats a non prospect? On what planet?
Little Slick, you are to be congratulated for possessing the courage to follow your initial foolishness with even more! Thank you for the laughs.
@Little Stevie Janowsky: Apparently the White Sox thought him enough of a prospect to offer him in exchange for James Shields and the Padres were happy to make that deal. Just sayin’.
Sad that even if it was a mistake, and he comes back looking like his old self that he’ll forever be labeled a cheater by many. I know it was his mistake, but dude was a 23yr old kid. Hope he comes back strong and has a HOF career.
Can’t be a HOF career if you use roids, the voters proved that. He’s already taken himself out of contention at the beginning of his career
20 years from now who knows what voters will do. Most of the current ones will be gone.
Before this is worth talking about he needs to stay healthy, clean and produce.
If I had a vote I’m voting for the roiders
bonds first!
Agree … would be very hypocritical if they allow him to get into HOF after all not allowing Clemens and Bonds not to get in.
I personally think those two should both be in. I believe pretty much every good player was using in those days.
It’s not like if you put them in the people will go oh they played clean.
If it was the same voters then it would be hypocritical. In 20 years there won’t be but a handful left from the current voters. And of those it will be the younger voters whom have been voting for the cheaters.
I agree with you wholeheartedly, though I don’t think HOF voters are concerned about their hypocrisy.
Idk man, Maddux and Glavine; two dudes who had playoff outcomes altered by Roid cases like Bonds and Clemens, you’d be hard pressed to make a case that they were juiced.
The assumption that “everyone was on it” negates the goods and the greats whose legacies were cut down a notch by cheaters like the Juice Generation.
@Simm, not every player. Chipper Jones never used neither did two of his teammates, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Bonds and Clemens should never sniff the Hall of Fame.
While you maybe right, he could have used and didn’t get caught. Not all users look like bonds.
While you are most likely correct roids was so wide spread it’s really impossible to know who used them.
I’m a padres fan and believe Gwynn never used them but I can’t say that for sure.
Gwynn is another dude who was clean.
We don’t need to go down rabbit hole of relative truth (not saying you were, merely saying that distrusting the obvious truth in front of us makes for useless minds), Chipper, Gwynn, Maddux, Glavine; they pass the eye test, the non-statistical anomaly test, and the reputation test.
Chew should be illegal
lmao! how nive!
just because they couldn’t win the thing? oh my little princess!
what’s hypocritical is i have to watch 173 draft king ads per game but pete rose is not in the HOF
Gwynn didn’t even take greenies, uppers, anything. His only stimulant, as it were, was chew. And it killed him.
I was a season ticket holder in San Diego from 1997-2002. Damn, it was sad watching Mr. Padre decline and pass.
Well, they DID win the thing. Just not as often as they likely would and should have had they not been subjected to playing against freakshow science projects in baseball uniforms.
By time he retires their will be a flood of previous steroid users in the hall.
You’re probably right
One thing to keep in mind is that Tatis Jr. was not using steroids while healthy and playing for the Padres (assuming he was tested regularly of course). He took them to try and heal faster from injury. Yes, this is still cheating and he was punished accordingly, but I wonder if this would change the minds of HOF voters? It’s way too early to predict him as a HOF player of course but should he get there, I wonder if this would make a difference?
“Their”
@Dorothy, most players who did use PEDs likely rarely did during season. Steroids and PEDs are cycled generally for around 8 weeks followed by minimum of same amount of time for recovery but ideally more. So players likely prior to the season when they had more time to train and gym and gorge on the insane amount of calories needed to effectively cycle.
playors are tested durijng offseasons, too! mlb should publish who were tested snd when.
The people who we have seen their doping records like Bonds used PED throughout the year.
When and where have u saw any records in regards to Bonds testing?? Please provide a link….
Who cares? If he helps SD win a few pennants and World Series, the HOF can shove their votes.
He means HOF quality career. Whether Tatis actually gets elected, no one cares at this point.
They let Papi in
Big Papi never tested positive during regular testing. Once regular testing as in place his performance actually got better because he was not facing all the juiced up pitchers. The PED users that are not getting into the HOF got worse once regular testing was in place.
He won’t be in the HOF. Between suspensions and injuries due to stupidity, he won’t play enough games.
the biggest head growth got in at first eligibility. steroids don’t matter.
Worked out ok for David Ortiz
Those voters currently blocking Bonds and Clemens will be dead or retired by the time Tatis is HoF eligible if he puts up the numbers. You’d be dealing with a different generation, they will have a different viewpoint. You already are beginning to see it with the last vote. You know damn well the players will vote them in eventually, Pete Rose as well.
Bonds and Clemens? The HOF players dislike them more than the BBWAA writers did. If they get in it will be posthumously.
Let’s see how this goes. My guess is train wreck.
It’s San Diego.
Light rail/trolley wreck.
He’d fit well in Milwaukee. That team and fanbase loves lowlifes and cheaters.
He is not on the same level as Lyin Ryan Braun
Few are.
Everyone dogged the White Sox for trading him when he was only 17 and not even a top 200 prospect.
Seems like San Diego gave him some of that good ol secret stuff
You can hop into Mexico, hit the local farmacia, load up, and hop back across the border. It’s legal down there.
It is legal in the DR.
How many prospects are ranked in the top 200 at 17 years old? Plus people get prospect rankings wrong all the time. I Bet the Dodgers wish they hadnt traded Yordan when he was a non prospect.
Ringworm
He’s ringworm free now and back on the field! It will be interesting to see how he is received around other ballparks in baseball. I’m guessing he’ll hear a lot of boo’s for a while. He have to regain the fans trust; he has a long way to go to get there.
Does his postseason suspension end with last season or carry over if the Padres should make it???
Ended with last season.
Welcome back, cheater!
If the Orioles could and i would support it, they should trade for Tatis Jr
No one has gotta like and/or forgive him…that’s everyone’s right. As for me, I will let his play do the talking.
Loser. Hope he blows out a knee day one and can’t play again.
Wow that’s really hateful. Hope karma doesn’t catch up to you.
To think something is one thing. We all have unbecoming thoughts.
Once you write it out or verbalize it; YOU just made the CHOICE to be toxic.
You’re an ash hat.
Your life must suck
Those Writers that said he was not a Good Player before his injury/PED problems must have just crawl out from under a Rock. Is Tatis Iligible for Playoffs this year????
Yes
The last time he played was in 2021 so as far as anyone knows he has never used any ped while playing an MLB game…anyone got proof he did? if not stfu
I HAVE proof.
So YOU stfu. Punk.
Whats your proof?
Just like the lyin’ dems and stolen elections proof of course! Can’t ever let the public see it, you just have to believe him
/s of course.
This is MLBTR.
Shove your political pimple-popping, you little pissant.
Feel like I hit a nerve there…. Still don’t see any of your “proof”
Seems about right
I agree with others- I don’t think he’s going to be the guy they signed him to be. Going by his performance in the minors on rehab assignment, he clearly can play baseball, but he will not play up to that contract and might even get shuffled around on the team as needed. His destiny on the Padres is to become a way overpaid super utility player and then be released with many years left on the contract, or get traded ASAP to a team who will be willing to take on his remaining contract for whatever reasons, but he’s not the guy San Diego signed him to be and his ship is going to sail before too long, one way or another.
You are assuming alot here
There are already plenty of indications the Padres would walk back that contract if they could. He’s shown a propensity for poor judgement, a willingness to cheat, and a growing injury history for a player so young. He may still eventually be a star, but the questions that now surround him and the lost luster/shine make him much less appealing and investable.
Reinstated on 4/20? Hmmm
A token gesture Bob
Post of the day
Let’s hope someone stole his hog.
Can’t give em benefit of the doubt … lost that when he cheated, must assume he cheats @everything he can, cheaters cheat, sorry he got caught not sorry 4tricking everybody n pulling wool over Pads eyes4 hundreds of millions of dollars, I’m sure his poor unethical decision gnaws on em when he’s driving his Maserati around w/sum hot babe n feels sorrow n shame cashing those fat checks, he’s wannabee puke
Reading this gave me a seizure.
LOUD NOISES
Sober up. And lay off the street drugs.
Welcome back cheater!
The Super Start is back lol
Tainted, forevermore!
Taking a more pragmatic view of Tatis being reinstated. The Padres essentially played the entire 2022 season without Tatis in the lineup and did pretty well if I recall (went to the NLCS). Since then, they added another proven bat in Bogaerts and extended key contributors (Machado, Cronenworth, Musgrove, Darvish, etc.) to avoid arbitration or free agency and extend this run together — for better or worse.
The current slow start by the Padres is predictable and happens most years as the players adapt to new rules and new opposing pitching. Adding Tatis gives them another offensive threat in an already-loaded lineup. When Musgrove comes off the DL and the Padres go to a five-man rotation, then I expect we will see improvement in their bullpen. Coupled with improved and patient approaches to hitting, this is a team primed to take off rapidly by mid-May.
Heh heh heh…
Padres gonna fold like a cheap lawn chair.
White Sox won the trade. /s
Heh heh heh…
the White Sox never win jackshit.
Intentionally walking guys with 1-2 counts.
heh heh heh…
BOOM! HOME RUN!
heh heh heh…
He’s going to have to deal with the boos but there’s no better way to prove the naysayers wrong than to have a great season, to really hammer the point that he was a star, and took the steroids just speed up his recovery. Probably lay off the motorbikes though, that’s probably off the table, lest he injures himself in a dumb way again.