SAN DIEGO – When discussing the options for a long-term agreement with electrifying young interbase Fernando Tatis Jr., the San Diego Padres brought the concept of “a statue contract”.
Like, if the kid is as good as Hall of Fame members Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman were, maybe in 15 or 20 years there will be a statue of “El Niño” next to the great Fathers in a grassy area just after Petco Park .
The options were year by year, a multi-year deal that bought a year or two from Tatis’s free agency, or a contract in which Tatis was with the Fathers probably for the rest of his career.
“In typical Tati style, his only real comment was, ‘Why not my entire career?'” Said General Manager AJ Preller on Monday, announcing that the two sides had finalized the 14-year contract. $ 340 million from Tatis, the longest in baseball history.
“He wanted to be one of those unique players who play his career in one place,” said Preller. “He loves the franchise, he loves the city, he loves his teammates and he talked a lot about wanting to really get in the way of that statue contract.”
Said Tatis: “I want the statue on a team. I want to be able to stay on a team and build my legacy here in San Diego.”
If Tatis and the Fathers are correct, the big decision will be which version of “El Niño” does the statue show: the one who makes smart moves on the shortstop, the one with a “Matrix” move to avoid being eliminated on first base or the one with the epic bat blow after homering for the second time in a playoff game?
“I’m going to put those numbers in first and then we can discuss it,” said Tatis with a laugh during a spring training video conference in Peoria, Arizona. “I don’t know. Maybe we can have three statues in different ways. We’ll see what happens.”
Tatis, 22, was eligible for salary arbitration after this season and for free agency after the 2024 season.
The son of former major league football player Fernando Tatis, he played only 143 games over two seasons, including the shortened 2020 season for the pandemic, but quickly became one of the faces of baseball.
He stands out for his talent, easy smile, blond dreadlocks fluttering under his cap and dance moves on the bench after hitting home runs.
Most importantly for the Fathers, Tatis made baseball fun again in San Diego, after years of futility. He helped San Diego end a 13-year playoff drought in 2020 and win a wild card series against the St. Louis Cardinals before the Padres were defeated by rival Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Division Series.
“I am the same boy on the field. Nothing is going to change,” he said. “I am playing the game I love. And I feel that when you do things with passion and love, I feel that it will reward you. And I feel that when people ask me how I am going to play this game, I will be the same child always. “
Tatis dared to defy old school rules. After hitting his second home run in an 11-9 victory in game 2 of the wild-card series against the Cardinals, he launched an emphatic bat stroke. A picture of Tatis at that time is on the cover of the video game “MLB The Show 21”.
In August, Tatis caused a sensation when he hit a grand slam in the 3-0 count with the Padres leading the Texas Rangers for seven races. The furor subsided and the Padres became the first team in MLB history to hit Grand Slams in four consecutive games and five in six games, leading to the nickname “Slam Diego”.
“He has great respect for the baseball game. A lot has been done in the past year, young players changing the game of baseball,” said Preller. “What results in success, doesn’t really change from age to age. Some of the styles change, maybe some of the skills change sometimes, but he respects greatness, he respects the people who came before him. that credit goes to your family. “
Tatis hit 0.301 with 39 home runs, 98 RBIs and 27 stolen bases in 143 games.
San Diego promoted Tatis to the champions on Opening Day 2019, losing the chance to delay his free agency by waiting a few weeks – a game reality experienced by other young stars like Kris Bryant with the Chicago Cubs and Bryce Harper with Washington Nationals.
The duration of Tatis’s contract exceeds the $ 325 million 13-year contract in November 2014 between Miami and Giancarlo Stanton, which was negotiated with the New York Yankees in December 2017, and the $ 330 million 13-year contract before of the 2019 season between Harper and Philadelphia.
Baseball’s biggest dollar deal remains Mike Trout’s $ 426.5 million 12-year contract signed with the Angels in March 2019. Tatis’s business is the third largest, also behind Mookie’s 12-year contract. $ 365 million betts with the Los Angeles Dodgers starting this season.