Is 2025 the best season of Fernando Tatis Jr.'s career?

I talked about this a bit on today's podcast (see below) but I wanted to write about it as well, because I think it's particularly wild:

This might be the best season in Fernando Tatis Jr.'s career.

Let's start with the stat the opened my eyes....

Here are the top two seasons of Tatis' career by bWAR. 2021 was certainly his most impactful season, putting up 6.6 WAR in just 130 games played and finishing third in MVP voting, but I think there's an argument to be made that 2025 is his best season.

For what it's worth, fWAR (WAR on FanGraphs, as opposed to WAR on Baseball Reference) says the same thing. His 5.6 fWAR in 2025 is only bested by the 6.8 fWAR that he posted in 2021. He has no other seasons where he's posted higher than 4.0 fWAR.

Now, I'm not saying that Tatis is going to surpass his 2021 WAR numbers over the final 12 games of the season, although I suppose that is not outside the realm of possibility. What I am saying is that Tatis has become a more complete player than he was before 2025 and that the advanced metrics show that off more than, perhaps, Tatis' own personality might.

Tatis 2.0

Here are some things to focus on when talking about Tatis' 2025 campaign:

• The highest walk rate of his career
• The most walks in any season of his career
• The lowest strikeout rate of his career
• The most games played in any season of his career
• The most hits in any season of his career
• The most stolen bases in any season of his career
• The 2nd best defensive season of his career

Part of the excitement of the San Diego Padres signing Tatis to a 14-year contract when he was 21-years old was that he had the ability to become a five-tool player, but he wasn't one yet.

His fielding was spectacular but inconsistent, he stole less bases, he walked a lot less, but none of that mattered because....

DINGERS

Are dingers cool? Undoubtedly. Do I like it when Tatis hits a bunch of them in a short period of time? You betcha. But the thing about being a five-tool player is that you can still impact the game and create winning plays when the ball isn't flying off your bat.

The development of a player superstar

Above, I referred to this version of Tatis as "Tatis 2.0". That's not to say that the power-hitting, dancing-while-the-ball-flies-over-the-wall version of Tatis is dead or gone....instead, he's been upgraded.

A willingness to take walks doesn't remove his ability to hit for power, just like a propensity for over-the-wall HR-robbing catches doesn't make Tatis any less of a potent base-stealer. He's adding to his toolkit, and that is allowing him to be an incredible valuable player even during offensive slumps....which happen to every player.

Also, it's worth noting here that a player most would consider "injury prone" has missed just 4 of the team's 150 games this season. That's not really a skill but it is a sign of him learning how to play within himself to create the most long-term value for the team.

In this season, where Tatis will easily finish as the team's leader in WAR no matter how you slice it, we've spent a lot of time talking about the guy he hasn't been. He himself has been frustrated by lowest slugging percentage and HR rate of his career. Maybe he just had to learn to appreciate the value of Tatis 2.0 over time.

And I, however foolishly, will view this as a potential step towards Tatis 3.0 because he's still the player that makes me dream the biggest about his potential.

I saw the player he was in March and April of this season, when he was slashing .345/.409/.602. Over 29 games, he hit 8 HRs, collected 18 RBIs, walked 13 times and stole 7 bases while playing nearly-perfect defense in right field. That version of him is still in there somewhere. His September numbers are already showing signs of similarity.

There's a version of baseball player that grabs hold of the thing that they can do well and they try to do that thing forever. Then, there are the superstars. The guys who are driven to get better than they are, no matter how good that is. Those are also the guys who find ways to contribute to their team during a slump by learning how to do the other things. They also tend to be the guys that figure out how to be impactful while staying healthy enough to post every game.

The fact that Tatis has, in a season marked by different batting stances and up-and-down power numbers, found a way to become the type of superstar that the team can depend on this much is something that I think Padres fans (and maybe Fernando himself) should appreciate.