The Padres are 36 games into their season. The one who plays outside Fernando Tatis Jr. he is still looking for his first home run. This 27-year-old player has not left the yard even though he has hit the ball more than anyone. Tatis was hitting .305 heading into Wednesday, nearly 200 points shy of his career mark. He has six more hits in 148 plate appearances.
Tatis won’t be locked out of the home run column for the rest of the season. He recorded 12 homers, which should have translated to nearly two dozen homers, based on the average of those batted ball events that often come out of the yard. Luis Rengifo has the most second baseman without a home run in 6. Last season, Jose Tena had more hits than a home run, also six. If he continues to hit the ball at a 12.5% clip, Tatis will be on the board in no time.
Coming off his 42-homer season in 2021, Tatis has been a mid-20s hitter in the power department. He has 25 dingers in his two full campaigns over that span. The injury and an 80-game PED suspension sidelined Tatis for the rest of 2022. A stress fracture in his leg cost him two months in 2024, but he still hit 21 home runs in 102 games. Even as Tatis’ combination of power and speed has tended toward the latter, he’s still an extremely productive offensive force. The outfielder has had a wRC+ over 130 over the past two seasons.
Tatis slashed .250/.320/.305 in 34 games. He was 20% worse than league average at the plate with wRC+. And that’s with a .337 BABIP, the highest since his rookie season. So, what’s wrong with the superstar?
Direct contact
The easiest way to turn a hookup into a singles show is to use the whole platform. Tatis was almost league average in terms of contact in his career. His strikeout, strikeout, and strikeout rates rarely deviate more than 5% from the league average. Tatis has upped that trend this season. He pulls the ball just 20.8% of the time (per Statcast), below the league average of 37.4% and nowhere near his career mark of 37.7%. Tatis is hitting up the middle at a whopping 46.9% clip, about 10% above the league average. He’s hitting against the pitch on 32.3% of his batted balls, a nearly 7% jump from his previous career high (25.4% in 2024).
Using the entire field isn’t inherently bad, especially if you rank in the 99th percentile with a hard-hitting rate. Tatis has a solid expected batting average of .280, which is in the 82nd percentile. It’s just not a good way to turn solid hits into damage.
Refuse to fly balls
Tatis is not only spraying the ball more than before. He’s hitting it again with a career-high 52.1% rate. Tatis tends to lean less than average on grounders, but his life mark was just a few percentage points above the league average of 44.2%. Tatis is still providing plenty of power with a 49.0% ground ball rate in 2025, which was a career high at the time. He posted a line drive rate below 20% for the first time as a major leaguer, but his fly ball rate did not change last season.
The jump in ground balls came at the expense of fly balls this year. Tatis’ drive rate is up to 28.1%, the best of his career. He reduced his pop-up rate to 3.1%. But Tatis is shooting the ball at just a 16.7% clip, down 9% from his career average, and below the league’s 24.1%. He also pulls the ball through the air at a career-low 5.2%. It’s the eighth-lowest mark among professional hitters. The low 10 drag wind rating is full of underpowered speedsters Victor Scott II, Chandler Simpson, Jake Mangumagain Luisangel Acuna. Not the kind of team you want to be in, especially as a high-impact contributor.
Meet on the beat
Tatis entered the league on the subject of bowling. He had a near 30% strikeout rate to go along with a 67.1% contact rate as a rookie. Even in the big 2021 season, when he finished third in the NL MVP voting, Tatis hit a whopping 28.0%. He had the fifth-lowest contact rate among professional hitters. Although the power has declined in recent seasons, Tatis has also made a lot of contact. He was in the low 20s in strikeout rate in 2023 and 2024. The 2025 campaign saw him come out at an 18.7% clip.
Strike rate drops to 25.0% in 2026. Tatis’ strikeout + swinging rate is 26.9%, the highest since 2021. His strikeout rate is over 30% for the first time in three seasons. These numbers correspond to the first three seasons of Tatis’ career, but he was the best football player in those years.
Now what?
The Padres offered Tatis a 14-year, $340MM extension through the 2021 season. It is more expensive if it goes for a long time. Tatis will make $36MM per year from 2029 to 2032. He has been worth the money so far, missing the 2022 season aside. Tatis was a 5+ WAR player (per Baseball Reference) in 2021, 2023, and 2025. He has two Gold Gloves for his impressive work in right field, and he has gained some defensive value by playing second base this year. It would be nice if he hit more as a corner outfielder than a second baseman.
Tatis appears to be himself from a physical point of view. His bat speed remains high at 74.6 mph, and his swing rate is higher than ever (51.1%). His stance is a little off, and he’s standing a little further back at the plate, but he hasn’t made any major changes to his setup. Tatis’ breaking point is much closer to the plate than usual, which explains the change in contact style. His running speed is consistent with the last few years. He is not broken. He has just become the worst parts of his former self in 2026.
Photo courtesy of David Frerker, Imagn Images
