Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. lands nod for a prestigious MLB award

You clicked expecting a Gold Glove story, didn’t you? Fair. Fernando Tatis Jr. spent 2025 turning right field into a nightly highlight reel and feels like a lock for the defensive hardware debate to come. But before we get to the leather, there’s a twist: the San Diego Padres’ star just picked up recognition for his bat. In a season where his defense roared the loudest, league voters still heard the thump.

That recognition comes via a Hank Aaron Award nomination — the honor reserved for the game’s best offensive seasons. It’s the kind of nod that reframes Tatis’ 2025 arc. He wasn’t chasing his cartoonish 2021 power line; he was building a more complete, sustainable profile that drove the Padres’ attack. The surprise here isn’t that he hit; it’s that he did it while evolving, tightening his approach, and choosing impact over chaos.

Fernando Tatis Jr. lands Hank Aaron Award nomination for Padres

Start with the strike-zone judgment. Tatis posted a career-best 12.9 percent walk rate, a quiet, veteran-type gain that changed the shape of his days at the plate. Fewer chase swings meant more counts in his favor, more traffic on the bases, and more chances to punish mistakes. That patience fed a different kind of havoc once he reached, a career-high 32 stolen bases.

The power never truly vanished — 25 home runs and an .814 OPS tell you that, but it matured. Instead of selling out to recreate 2021, Tatis kept his swing geared for line-drive damage and trusted that the home runs would come. They did, alongside a stack of competitive at-bats that traveled well against any velocity band or game state. He may be “short” of his peak year by raw slug, but the total package played big when the Padres needed sparks.

All of this has arrived alongside that “inevitable” Gold Glove conversation. The irony is perfect: Tatis remade his defensive reputation in right field so completely that many assumed his next headline would be leather-only. The Hank Aaron nod cuts through that assumption, reminding everyone that the same player igniting throws from the warning track is also grinding out walks, taking the extra 90 feet, and punishing mistakes at the plate.

Since returning to the field in 2022, Tatis has settled into consistency — maybe less loud than his earliest fireworks, definitely more complete. That’s the takeaway of this nomination: it validates the version of Tatis the Padres bet on for the long haul, the one who wins in more ways than one.