The games come at baseball players day after day after day for week after week after week for enough months that it is unwise to think about much beyond the moment they are in.
Because it is the rarest of gifts to not only possess the talent but to be able to withstand the mental and physical churn of a major league season, counting on the sensational is simply not something anyone in the game does.
Everyone slumps. Most do it a fair amount. Many talented players have flared out after a good month, or even a good season or two.
Especially in front offices and among all those who have been in the game for any length of time, even as they project performance, there is a wait and see about everything.
And then there is Fernando Tatis Jr., for whom it seems there is no such thing as hyperbole.
He may well end up requiring more than one statue to commemorate his career and commitment and all the championships.
“The main thing is now he’s got a chance to set his mark by winning World Series,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. “It starts with one, and you build on that.”
For all the rear ends in seats and jersey sales one highlight-reel-of-a-man can inspire, that’s what this is about for the Padres and the young shortstop in which they have invested so heavily.
“I’m all about winning,” Tatis said last month. “And I’m about winning in San Diego.”
So certain are the Padres about his ability to help them do that — by not only maintaining the pace of the practically incomparable start to his career but improving on it — they gave him the longest and third-richest contract in baseball history. After he had played just 143 major league games.
Basically, the thinking was there was no better way to spend $340 million over 14 years.
“If you’re going to bet on somebody, it’s probably this guy,” General Manager A.J. Preller said in February.
The deal was more than three times what any player had received a year before being arbitration eligible.
The Padres bet the “statue contract” on Tatis. (Not only did international scouting director Chris Kemp coin the phrase during the team’s internal discussions leading up to negotiations with Tatis in January, but Preller introduced it to the world in the news conference to announce the deal.)
As in, if Tatis lives up to the deal the Padres will have to find a place in Petco Park for a statue to go along with those of Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman. At least one.
“I’m going to put (up) those numbers first, then we can discuss it,” Tatis said when asked if he thought the statue would be of his hitting, playing defense or flipping a bat. “Maybe we can have three statues, three different ways. We’ll see what happens.”
Yes, we will.
There have been just 13 players to ever have a higher OPS after 143 career games than Tatis’ .956 mark. No player in history has had as many home runs (39) while also stealing as many bases (27) as Tatis through 143 games.
Part of the reason the Padres believe so strongly in the 22-year-old’s ability to continue to produce is the many ways in which he can produce.
“He can not only hit the ball 450 feet, he can bunt for a hit, he can beat out ground balls,” associate manager Skip Schumaker said. “He’s sliding in different ways you’ve never seen before. People just can’t do what he does and put his body in those positions. (Especially) with the size of him, people just can’t do what he does. … Some of these kids are just good hitters. He can do something on the bases, he can do something special at shortstop. Whatever you say, he can do something special.”
So to get the statue, all he needs to keep doing is keep getting better. Because in the major leagues, getting better is requisite just to keep up.
“The biggest thing with Tati is continued improvement,” Preller said, referring to Tatis by the nickname those in the organization normally use. “If he takes the same steps he took from his rookie year to his second year, if he’s able to take similar steps, That’s a very successful year.”
For all the running catches and sprints from first to third and scoring on pop flies caught by infielders and physics-defying slides, one of the most impressive things Tatis has done over his two seasons in the majors is avoid extended slumps.
Just six times in his career has he gone consecutive games without getting on base. He has gone back-to-back games without a hit just eight times and three straight games without a hit only once. (For reference, Mike Trout also went consecutive games without getting on base six times in his first 143 games and went back-to-back games without a hit eight times. Trout twice went four games without a hit in that span.)
Tatis did endure an eight-game stretch last September in which he hit .069 (2-for-29) and struck out nine times.
In the skid, he was consistently late to the fastball and started to “cheat” on it, which pitchers exploited by not giving him good pitches. As the slump went on — again, it lasted eight games — he became jumpy and started to uncharacteristically chase more pitches outside the strike zone and also those in the zone he would have normally laid off.
If there is one place Tatis is vulnerable, it is the low and inside pitch. He will continue to need to force pitchers more toward the center of the plate by maintaining a consistent discipline.
As evidenced by the fact he hit .292 (7-for-24) with a .370 on-base percentage over the season’s final seven games and then went 5-for-11 with two home runs, a double and three walks in the Wild Card Series, he is more than capable of regaining that discipline even when it inevitably falters.
“It’s simple for me,” hitting coach Damion Easley said. “It’s how he prepares, how he handles himself. What I mean by how he handles himself is not getting too emotional and overreacting. When he’s on a good streak he does a really good job of maintaining his prep work, his level of concentration. He takes information well and goes out there and tries to apply it. … I don’t see any reason he won’t continue to have this level of success.”
It’s pretty much that simple for Tatis as well.
“I feel like if I bring the same energy and the same passion every single day, that’s going to take care of itself,” he said when asked what it will take to live up to the statue contract. “The same work ethic that I bring in the past years, that’s going to give me results. It’s about being the same and even getting better. I feel like I’m going to get better with time. I’m going to keep learning about myself, about the game and we’re going to skyrocket.”
Speaking of all that Tatis brings to the ballpark every time he shows up, it seems the only thing that can truly slow him would be something he wouldn’t be able to fix — an injury that keeps him off the field.
Since the start of the 2019 season, Tatis ranks ninth in the majors in runs created per 27 outs, a metric that attempts to measure how many runs a team made up of eight of the same player would score in a game. All of the players in front of him have had between 106 and 325 more plate appearances in that span.
Tatis played just 84 games his rookie season, missing more than a month early after tearing a hamstring making an astonishing stretch to catch a throw at second base and was shut down in mid-August due to a stress reaction in his lower back. Both those maladies could be traced to the manner of his play.
He missed more than a week of spring training this year with a shoulder issue that actually has plagued him on and off for years and can be aggravated mainly when he reaches across his body and on impact plays — either with the ground or another player.
With the way Tatis plays, the Padres figure to be holding their breath quite a bit over the years.
They have not held their tongue. Not entirely.
While no one is looking to curb his passion, vigor or intensity, which meld his childlike love for the game with instincts that are beyond his years, the Padres have discussed with Tatis the wisdom of sliding feet first at times among other suggestions about how he might preserve himself in certain situations.
He has shown he is gaining such wisdom, such as sometimes not leaving home plate on every hit in the gap as if he intends to get to third base before it lands and not throwing his body at every ground ball just beyond his reach. Padres veterans have said many times the natural process will include him understanding more and more about preservation.
“He’ll learn,” third baseman Manny Machado said recently. “From his first year to last year, he’s gotten better with knowing himself, knowing his limits, knowing how to play the game. The more he plays the more he’ll understand. … Obviously, we have myself, (Eric Hosmer), we have guys who are going to help him. But he can’t change his game play. He’s got to continue to be Fernando Tatis, and he’s going to continue to be Fernando Tatis. That’s why he’s one of the most exciting players in baseball.”
Everyone has their fingers crossed as they settle in for the show.
“The health is the major component of this,” Schumaker said. “… If we can get a healthy 155 or whatever, if he can stay healthy, he should be an MVP candidate every year.”