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Fernando Tatis Jr. 2021 Fantasy Outlook: Worthy Of Top-Five Draft Stock?
4 years agoIf you were not a believer in San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. after his elite half season in 2019, you probably are now after he took his game to an even higher level in 2020. So far, the guy has a 162-game average line of 44 homers, 31 steals, a .301 batting average and a .374 on-base percentage, numbers that few other players can even dream of. His career .366 BABIP casts some doubts about him really being an above-average contributor in the batting average category, but his elite batted-ball metrics (career .371 xwOBA, 92.7 average exit velocity, 51.7% hard-hit rate) ease those concerns after you pull back that layer. There are no way two ways about it, Tatis is a tippy top-tier hitter for 2021. Maybe there are safer bets out there with bigger samples of data backing their elite production, but Tatis should absolutely be a top-five drafted fantasy commodity, and anything after that is straight-up theft.
