Fernando Tatis Jr’s 2026 season at a glance
Credit: Yahoo Sports
The 2026 season came and went for the San Diego Padres, who unfortunately couldn’t make it past the NLDS. It’s better placement than last year, but not quite where the team expects itself to be.
Right now, the Padres are in a unique spot in Major League Baseball. A good amount of their core is already solidified and will continue to play for the team into the next decade. With that in mind, it’s helpful to know where their franchise players stand now that the season is over.
There’s no better place to start than Fernando Tatis Jr.
Fernando “El Nino” Tatis Jr. made headlines this season for several reasons. The Dominican-born player infamously went a career-high 55 games without landing a single home run. This homerless streak spawned a series of conjectures lambasting the player. Many harshly called the end of a player who will barely turn 28 in January.
EL NIÑO!!! https://t.co/b3ElpWGvHx
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) May 30, 2026
However, everyone knows how this story ends. Tatis Jr. broke out of his yips, blasted 25 home runs in the 2026 regular season and then another two in the postseason just for good measure. With that, he’s tied for the second most he’s ever hit in a single year. Notably, 20 of these home runs came after the All-Star break.
In fact, Tatis Jr. had his best post-ASB performance of his career. In 2026, after the All-Star Break, El Niño knocked in more runs, hit more homers, had more hits, and slugged better than he ever has before. This is even counting his breakout 2021 campaign with the Padres, where he hit 42 home runs in one season.
Across the majors, Tatis Jr.’s post-ASB performance was one of the best. Amongst all qualified hitters, he ranked second in OPS, fourth in slugging, and tied for sixth in RBI. The overwhelming comeback from his rough start shouldn’t be understated. It’s no exaggeration to say Tatis Jr. was one of the best players in baseball during the second half of the season. This offensive uptick is one of the many factors that carried the San Diego Padres into the postseason.
The Padres’ poster child ended the season on a high note, despite what the looks might say. If anything, this should indicate that baseball has not seen the peak of what he can accomplish.
That said, there’s always room for improvement in baseball. Despite a fantastic campaign in 2026, there are still a few things trending down for Tatis that warrant discussion.
It would be wrong to write off the platinum glove’s homerless streak as circumstantial and not a fault of his mechanics. One of Tatis’s primary tools was missing for a good portion of his season and largely the reason for his lack of pop. Since 2021, Tatis’ pull air percent has only gone down. In fact, 2026 was his absolute lowest at 10.7 percent. While Tatis was still certainly able to hit the ball hard this year, most of the time it was to the ground. On batted balls to the pull side, Tatis saw an average launch angle of -3. This is the first time in his career he’s ever recorded a negative average for this metric. It may go without saying, but it did improve later in the season. Either way, this ultimately led to the highest ground ball rate of his career and the second-most GIDPs.
While he did overcome these odds, it’s a matter of how he plans to avoid this reality in the future. These things are still trending down, regardless of the season he ended up with. Simply put, it would be nice to see the version of him from when August came around more consistently.
Prior to this, it was obvious Tatis Jr. began shifting his approach to hitting for average rather than power. He became more selective with his pitches and punished mistakes more frequently. This proved more beneficial for his team than for himself. Tatis hit three triples this year and had a career-high 294 total bases in 2026. He finished first in runs scored for the Padres at 96.
This year, Tatis Jr. was caught stealing a career-high 13 times. Coincidentally, he also knocked a career-high number of singles this season. He fell just below efficient on his stolen base percentage this year. He’s done this before but not for a while. This might simply be the law of diminishing returns, perhaps a consequence of having too many opportunities to fail. However, it may also be an indicator that he has to reevaluate his approach on the bases. One particularly controversial baserunning move during a match against the Tampa Bay Rays led to his second ejection.
Tatis Jr. and Stammen were ejected following this play.
https://t.co/N7iJ2dAbIJ
— Underdog MLB (@UnderdogMLB) August 30, 2026
That said, he hasn’t slowed down much from his peak seasons. Therefore, he’s likely capable of doing another 30+ stolen bases.
For what it’s worth, this version of a healthy Fernando Tatis Jr. is certainly one of the best baseball has ever seen. If 2027 can build upon this foundation, there may be no limits to what the All-Star can do. The two-time silver slugger ends the season slashing .289/.358/.470 with an .828 OPS and a 130 OPS+.
