Padres Head into Spring Looking to Answer Their 'Biggest Question'
Every team has questions at this point in the year. Even a team like the Padres, who had a better offseason than almost any other team, goes into spring training with at least one or two decent-sized question marks.
For San Diego this year, there's one huge question mark that, if you zoom in, is actually a series of question marks formed into the shape of a bigger question mark. As Dennis Lin writes in The Athletic, that question is Fernando Tatis Jr.
Starting pitching depth is a close second, but Fernando Tatis Jr. is the single variable that could most dramatically swing the Padres’ fortunes. How effective will he be as he returns from suspension and multiple surgeries on his left arm? How long will he go before he sustains an injury? Where, exactly, will he settle in on defense? If Tatis is the Tatis of old, the Padres may have unmatched offensive firepower. If he struggles to stay on the field or shake off the rust, a top-heavy roster may be set up for massive disappointment. For Tatis, this could be a telling spring.
Tatis is coming off two major surgeries, one on his wrist and one on his shoulder. He hasn't played a big-league game in nearly 18 months and won't be back from suspension until about three weeks into the 2023 season. And when he does come back, he'll be learning a new position on the job — and we don't even know yet which position that will be!
Tatis is supremely talented, which will certainly help. There might be a slow start, but he'll likely readjust to big-league pitching pretty quickly. He's a freakishly good athlete, so he should be able to pick up a new position. The biggest question comes down to the shoulder. It's not uncommon at all for a hitter to take a year or more to re-develop his power after having a shoulder labrum surgically repaired. For some hitters, it never comes back, although those guys are generally older than Tatis is, and very few are as athletic as Tatis.
So there are reasons to be optimistic about Tatis, but there are enough unknowns to call him a major question heading into the season. We'll get some idea of the power in spring training, but it won't be until late April, when he starts playing truly competitive games again, that we'll start to really understand what to expect from him this year.