Fernando Tatis Jr., Padres Share Interest in Contract Extension, Says GM Preller

Fernando Tatis Jr. has played only 143 career games, but the San Diego Padres are already thinking about locking him up for the future.

"With Tatis, I think everybody's been up front that the job is to get talented players and individuals that fans love to see play that lead to a winning situation," Padres general manager A.J. Preller told reporters Wednesday. "Then, you want to keep those guys in the city. He's expressed interest. I know we'll go down that path."

Tatis is under control through the 2024 season, so there doesn't necessarily have to be any urgency from the team to get a deal done. However, it would behoove the Padres to pay it forward with Tatis to buy out his arbitration years and perhaps first two or three seasons of potential free agency.

Tatis could be just 25 years old hitting the open market, at which point he'd probably be in line for one of the biggest contracts in MLB history.

The 21-year-old hit .277/.366/.571 with 17 home runs and 45 runs batted in, along with 11 steals, in 2020. His 2.9 wins above replacement ranked fourth among all batters, per FanGraphs, and he'll likely wind up finishing in the top five of MVP voting.

Preller said the shortened nature of the season did not allow much time for contract negotiations.

"It was just such a short season and such a sprint to the finish line that I don't think there was a lot in the middle of all of that for trying to put a contract negotiation in there," Preller said. "We'll start to look more seriously at that here this offseason, and it sounds like there's interest on both sides, so we'll see where that goes."