Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. a no-brainer finalist for elite defensive honor

October baseball sometimes has a way of confirming what fans already knew by June. For San Diego, that means Fernando Tatis Jr. showing up exactly where Padres fans expected him: on the shortlist for the Gold Glove, one of the sport’s elite defensive honors. The name of the trophy can wait; the news is simple — Tatis is in the final three, and it feels more like validation than surprise.

Context matters, too. Right field in the National League wasn’t short on contenders this year, yet the final cut still features Tatis alongside Corbin Carroll (D-backs) and Sal Frelick (Brewers). That’s the league quietly admitting what San Diego screamed all season: the standard at the position lives on the grass in right at Petco. Rawlings and SABR announced the finalist trios by position today, underscoring that this isn’t a hype vote, managers/coaches account for 75% of the balloting and the SABR Defensive Index makes up the other 25%. 

Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. a clear-cut Gold Glove finalist

Zoom in on the resume, and the case hardens. Tatis logged 153 games (1,299 innings) in right with a .992 fielding percentage and 359 total chances — heavy volume with clean execution. He also posted one of the league’s best run-prevention tallies by the publicly available metrics; FanGraphs credits him with a strong Defensive Runs Saved figure (15) and a positive overall defensive value, the kind of season-long footprint that tends to sway both eyes and models. 

Stack that against his peers and the picture stays sharp. Carroll brought an excellent .997 fielding percentage but did so in fewer innings and with fewer putouts, while Frelick delivered quality work in Milwaukee’s corner outfield mix. The point isn’t to nitpick their files; it’s to underline how Tatis paired elite plays with workload. When you carry star-level efficiency across the most innings at the position, you turn “best highlights” into “best season.” 

There’s also history here. Tatis isn’t just arriving, he’s returning. He won both the Gold Glove and the National League’s Platinum Glove in 2023, becoming the first Padre (and first NL outfielder) to take home the Platinum. That matters in voter memory: when a player establishes a defensive baseline at that level, a follow-up season like 2025 reads as consistency, not a spike.