Fernando Tatis Jr. has MLB personality eating his words as Padres star's power returns

We can start with the simplest possible update: Erik Kratz was wrong. In May, the former MLB catcher went on Foul Territory and turned Fernando Tatis Jr.’s power outage into another referendum on his 2022 PED suspension. Kratz said Tatis’ power had declined “ever since he got caught using steroids,” then predicted he would be surprised if the Padres star ever reached 20 home runs again.

No matter how he wants to dress it up, there was no wiggle room in that take. Kratz drew the line at 20, and before the season was over, Tatis had already crossed it. Tatis launched his 22nd homer of the season Monday night in Colorado, sending a 111.1 mph missile an estimated 449 feet. The baseball traveled a long way. Kratz’s argument did not survive the trip.

Now Kratz has suddenly discovered this thing called mechanics. While reacting to San Diego’s winning streak, Kratz praised the swing adjustment behind Tatis’ second-half surge. He talked about the work. He credited the changes and offered an actual baseball explanation, one he could have offered four months ago. But what he didn’t do was own the garbage he shoveled the first time. 

Erik Kratz found the Fernando Tatis Jr. explanation after choosing the lazy one

Changing an opinion can actually be healthy. Quietly replacing a bad argument after the player makes it impossible to defend is something else entirely. Kratz didn’t plainly retract the PED theory. He didn’t even revisit the prediction that Tatis might never reach 20 homers again. He simply moved on to the correct explanation as though he hadn’t spent May pushing the laziest one available. But not us, we keep receipts.

That’s why we should call this what it is. Kratz had enough evidence to recognize a mechanical problem and chose the steroid shortcut anyway.

As we pointed out when Kratz made those remarks, Tatis was still hammering the baseball. Kratz even acknowledged that the exit velocity remained intact. That should have been the layup. He could have told everyone to look deeper. Perhaps he just acted on this best way to drive content, instead of going down the metrics lane.

MLB’s early examination of Tatis’ swing did exactly that. His stance had become dramatically more closed. His attack angle had fallen. His contact point had moved deeper, and the pull-side fly balls that once made him terrifying had nearly disappeared. Tatis was producing plenty of hard contact, but too much of it was going into the ground or toward the opposite field.

That was a map of a broken swing. Kratz turned it into a chemical confession.

Suddenly, Tatis eventually reopened his stance, created more freedom in his lower half and started getting the barrel out front again. By June, his stance had moved back from nearly square to 33 degrees open, and the pull-side damage came back with it.

He entered the All-Star break with five home runs and a .277/.340/.374 slash line. Since the break, he has hit 17 homers while batting .310/.387/.619. Tatis is ripping apart the entire premise of Kratz’s argument one elevated baseball at a time.

Kratz is free to praise the adjustment, as he should. He also owes the rest of the sentence. He was wrong. Tatis’ suspension remains part of his record. He earned that scrutiny, and nobody owes him historical amnesia. What happened in 2022 doesn’t turn every future slump into proof that his talent disappeared with a positive test. Baseball analysis still requires analyzing baseball.

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