Not a big power guy anymore
Fernando Tatis Jr. is hitting the ball hard. 57 percent of his batted balls qualify as hard contact, well above the league average of 39 percent. But he has not hit a home run in 41 games. His OPS is .607. His slugging percentage is .288. His isolated power — the gap between slugging and batting average — is .044. For context, his career ISO is .226. Something is wrong, but no one wants to talk about the obvious thing.
Before and after: In 2022, Tatis was suspended for 80 games after he tested positive for an anabolic steroid. In the three full seasons before his suspension, his OPS numbers were .969, .937, and .975. He was one of the best hitters in baseball, and a walking highlight reel. In the three seasons since his return his OPS numbers are: .770, .833, .814. Plus a .607 so far in 2026. The contact quality is genuinely there — his hard-hit rate is real — but the power that made those pre-suspension years electric has essentially disappeared.
How we think about steroids: Steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs are something the baseball world would like to keep in the past. And indeed, we’re far from the days when light-hitting guys would report to spring training talking about their new training regimen and would suddenly post 40+ HRs. Today, just a handful of players test positive each year, and it’s explained away. The assumption is that the player will serve their suspension and come back and be the same guy (just one who is more careful to not take steroids “by mistake”). Tatis said that he tested positive because he inadvertently used a spray that contained the steroid to treat a skin infection. The baseball world believed him. The numbers, however, are the numbers.
Of Pads and PEDs: The other side of this is that Tatis’s exit velo is basically unchanged from before his suspension. He is still smoking the ball, but it’s not going over the fence. He’s also had multiple injuries after the suspension that have altered his batting stance and changed the launch angle of the ball off his bat. Baseball seasons are long, and players are streaky. The lack of home run production is almost certainly in Tatis’s head right now, and it’s possible that once he breaks out he really breaks out.
