Padres Prospects Winning Awards

A pair of farmhands earned league honors

With a 16-30 record, sitting 12.5 games out of first place, we know the 2017 season is not the best version of the San Diego Padres. ALTHOUGH it is worthy to note that on this day in the 2003 the then-Florida Marlins were 13.5 games out of first and ended up winning the World Series so stranger things have happened.

But, back to reality. The Padres have given us no illusions that they are in building mode. I can’t call it a rebuilding mode because “rebuilding” implies there was something good that existed and needs to be resurrected. A franchise that has won exactly one playoff game in the last 19 years is NOT rebuilding.

They’re laying the foundation for what should be a bright future. On Monday a pair of Padres prospects earned awards. One of them could very well be their starting shortstop for a decade. The other is a guy most of you probably didn’t even know was in the system.

Fort Wayne Tincaps shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. was named the Midwest League Player of the Week. All Tatis did was hit .462 with a 1.533 OPS, hit three doubles, a triple, three home runs, drive in six runs and score nine more. That’s a pretty nice week, especially when you consider he’s only 18 years old.

Tatis, as you may recall, is the son of former big league slugger Fernando Tatis, the only man to ever hit two grand slams in one inning. He did it with the Cardinals in 1999, hitting both bombs off then-Dodgers starter Chan Ho Park. (Don’t ask me why Park was still in the game for the second one, that’s a question for Davey Johnson).

He was part of the 2016 trade that sent James Shields to the White Sox. At the time not much was known about Tatis because he was a 17-year-old who had not entered affiliated baseball in the United States yet. Now he’s one of San Diego’s top-10 prospects.

At 6’3” and 185 pounds Tatis Jr. is not a small kid so scouts have long projected him to develop power. Most of them just didn’t see it developing quite this early. It was a little advice from his pop that helped unlock the … well, pop.

"I tried to get stronger and bigger and did a lot to work on that [in the offseason]," said Tatis in an interview with www.milb.com. "Now, I'm just trying to put the ball on the barrel. I was talking with my dad, and he told me that I'm big enough to hit for power and average, so he told me to try to do both. Just swing hard."

Tatis is already on the MLB radar. That’s a place Christian Villanueva is trying to come back to.

Villanueva was named the Pacific Coast League Player of the Week for his performance with El Paso. The 3rd baseman hit .480 with a 1.399 OPS, three home runs, seven runs batted in and eight runs scored. While everyone was waiting for Tatis to show up some folks were waiting to see if Villanueva would return.

In 2013 the 3rd baseman was a top-10 prospect in the Chicago Cubs system. Yes, the system that had guys like Javier Baez, Jorge Soler and Albert Almora in it. He was always regarded as a very good defender but his bat was a little slow to develop. After missing the entire 2016 season with a broken leg the Padres signed Villanueva to a minor league contract.

In El Paso he seems to have found his swing. At the age of 25 and after eight years in the minor leagues the Jalisco, Mexico native may be putting it all together, giving the Padres even more organizational depth than they probably knew they had.

One more Monday note, the Padres are expected to recall infielder Carlos Asuaje from El Paso and option a relief pitcher TBD back to Triple-A. Asuaje should join the club in New York for a three-game series with the Mets starting Tuesday.

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