Fernando Tatis Jr. Suspended 80-Games, Eliminated from Face of Baseball Argument?

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Speaker 1: [00:00:12] Big news out of San Diego. So we haven't seen any of Fernando Tatis Junior this season as he was recovering from a wrist injury. And now we won't see it for at least 80 games because I hear it takes about 80 games to heal up from ringworm. Right. That sounds about right, according to my sources. What were your thoughts and were you surprised that ringworm was such a costly infection? [00:00:31][19.0]
Speaker 2: [00:00:32] Is it ringworm or is it treating a fungus from a bad haircut? Because that's the that's the excuse that Fernando Tatis is dad trotted out on radio today. [00:00:42][9.3]
Speaker 1: [00:00:42] So, you know, when you have locks like that, I'm sure it takes a lot of proper hair maintenance. And I'm sure, you know, sometimes a clipper gets in there that you weren't planning on and it has it's carrying something. And sure enough, boom. Ringworm. [00:00:56][13.4]
Speaker 2: [00:00:57] I guess I don't know exactly how all of it plays out, but yeah, Fernando Tatis gets an 80 game suspension. He's not going to play for the Padres this year. I was disappointed, as any fan should be, which is like, Oh shucks, he's not going to get to play in the playoffs. But I'm not like downtrodden or upset about it. I was surprised by the hostile reaction people had to tatis testing positive for PEDs because like when DeAndre Hopkins tested positive, it wasn't a hostile backlash. Maybe there was a handful of Cardinals fans like baseball. Yeah, of course. [00:01:29][31.9]
Speaker 1: [00:01:29] That's part of the reason why there is such a hostile backlash, because baseball is the sport that had the most notorious run ins with PEDs in the early 2000. And here's what I'll say just for the sake of not being a hypocrite whenever I talk about this. So for those steroid era guys, I gave them all passes. You know how I feel about Barry Bonds. You know, I feel about Roger Clemens. I think they should be in the Hall of Fame. But when it comes to like modern baseball suspensions, I do look at those guys a little funnier, like when it came down to Ryan Braun. And this situation kind of comes very similar to Ryan Braun in terms of deflecting blame or a Manny Ramirez or A-Rod the second time around when he got busted. When you get hit a second time, I start to really question kind of like the integrity when we really get into that part. And I think when it comes to Tatis and what a lot of people take issue with is it really speaks to the character of Tatis coming into this year, kind of like that careless attitude that he somewhat has. I mean, obviously I mentioned it out the gate here. The wrist injury was caused because of wanting right around a motorcycle, an offseason, which, hey, for every average day citizens not really a big crime, but when millions of dollars on the line and the whole brand is carried on your back, that's a big problem, especially because Fernando Tatis was in the argument for who is the next face of baseball. And I think one of the big things I got to ask you is he he completely disqualified from that argument moving forward. When you look around the game and see other people like Aaron Judge Shohei Ohtani, Jacob deGrom, you know, other young faces, kind of like competing for who's that face of baseball that people could really rally behind. [00:03:06][96.8]
Speaker 2: [00:03:07] Are you asking if he's disqualified from. [00:03:09][1.8]
Speaker 1: [00:03:10] That are disqualified from that argument moving forward? [00:03:12][2.2]
Speaker 2: [00:03:13] No, I don't think so. [00:03:15][1.3]
Speaker 1: [00:03:15] I would, of course. [00:03:16][0.3]
Speaker 2: [00:03:17] So I think that there's a bit of a generational gap and a racial gap happening around the situation. When I hear when I hear AJ Preller used terms like personal accountability and maturity, Ray feels like. [00:03:30][12.6]
Speaker 1: [00:03:30] It's has nothing to do with his race. If I just mentioned Ryan Braun. [00:03:33][3.5]
Speaker 2: [00:03:35] Oh, of course. There's a gap here when you have the loud, outspoken Latin player who is now getting busted for riding a motorcycle and taking PEDs, and all of a sudden it feels like people are coming to crucify him. [00:03:47][12.8]
Speaker 1: [00:03:48] Well, you know, it's also crucifying him as teammates. Mike Clevinger put him on blast this week or two times that they've had to cover his ass. [00:03:54][6.5]
Speaker 2: [00:03:55] You mean white guy might clevinger who? [00:03:57][1.7]
Speaker 1: [00:03:57] Oh, I mean, I wonder who also. [00:03:59][2.1]
Speaker 2: [00:04:00] Does is. [00:04:00][0.5]
Speaker 1: [00:04:01] On the same team that has to rally for the same prize, a World Series championship. And they thought they were competing for that when they went out, inquired, Oh, I don't know. Juan Soto here at the trade deadline. And now suddenly their star player that was already on their roster, tatis, is having these issues. And not to mention to he had that dugout blow up with Manny Machado last year. So there's a running history. It's not just those two issues, health, technically three issues. And it does have you mentioning character. [00:04:26][26.0]
Speaker 2: [00:04:27] Yeah, I totally get that. People are totally going to go to the character point on Tatis and I think at a certain point you have enough of these like little transgressions that happen that people start to associate it like, Oh yeah, there's probably a problem here. Fernando Tatis just lost his age 22 season for two different reasons, obviously. And the point I'll point to with the PEDs is that we know Fernando Tatis was taking the PEDs this year and we also know he hasn't played a single game. So if it was helping him this season, it would have been to help recover the wrist injury faster. And this is a different conversation about PEDs, about whether PEDs help improve your performance and also help heal injuries. So in this case, it was a. [00:05:11][44.0]
Speaker 1: [00:05:11] Big healing. [00:05:12][0.2]
Speaker 2: [00:05:12] Injuries camp. [00:05:12][0.4]
Speaker 1: [00:05:13] If it was strictly about healing the injuries, I don't think Tatis in his camp would have been in such a rush to get out that bullshit ringworm argument. [00:05:20][7.3]
Speaker 2: [00:05:21] I think it's just getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar. And either I think that that's been mishandled badly by Tatis and his camp. Like just make the statement and then don't address it again. Now you have secondary statements about ringworm. They're not letting it go. You've now have his dad going on radio, like I mentioned, and saying that it's, you know, an issue with a haircut like that part. They've totally but that's. [00:05:45][23.5]
Speaker 1: [00:05:45] About to after the fact he has he's a second generation superstar. The fact that he has a dad who played baseball and actually a dad who also played baseball right around the heart of the steroid era as well, kind of also makes this just as bad. They did. His camp wasn't around to advise him in a proper way. Again, I don't want to come down on Tatis fully, but I do got to say, I think he's disqualified from the face of baseball argument, especially because we have so many exciting young superstars out there. I mentioned show, I mentioned Judge and too, obviously, we touched on the kind of the racial dynamics. Those are obviously two very nonwhite athletes there in Judge and Show respectively. I don't think obviously it's a racial argument in that when it comes down to Dottie's. I just think that no matter what he does moving forward, people are going to throw this in his face. And again, Ryan Brown had a decent little career after he came back from his suspension, but no one wanted to kind of like look at him as superstar MVP caliber Ryan Braun from that point, move forward. Not that he really never lived up to that potential, but I think this is going to have some lingering side effects that Tatis maybe didn't really plan for whenever he first took the substance. And as far as if he knowingly or unknowingly took the substance, we've come to the point where you're a professional athlete. Your job is knowing what's going in or on your body. [00:07:06][80.9]
Speaker 2: [00:07:06] Yeah, personal accountability, which is the same thing that A.J. Preller was yelling him out for, like the get off my lawn guy who needs personal accountability. And I totally get that point from the Padres. I thought they maybe would have supported him a little bit more, but obviously, this is what you might call strike three. So at this point, the Padres just might be a little bit tired of this. AJ Preller is not exactly the nicest guy in the world if you've read reports about him as well, so he doesn't necessarily buy brownie points with me on that. In terms of the face of baseball argument, I think that's a bit more of a popularity contest because we know face of baseball is not necessarily merit based of like the best player will be the face of baseball. Derek Jeter is obviously still the most famous baseball player in the world and never during his career was he the best player. [00:07:52][45.6]
Speaker 1: [00:07:52] Top 40 was on that trajectory. I mean, when I think about who was on the cover of the show, when I think of little things like that, or how the Dairy Queen commercial between him and Cody Bellinger and obviously Bellinger's falling off and we'll never be in that conversation. But Tatis was the guy that baseball was pushing out there and saying, That's our guy, that's our rallying point, because he was fun. He so it can be fun. I just think that unfortunately, every time he pimps a home run, it's going to look a little funny to maybe more casual fans or obviously the baseball purists that will hold it against him that this happened because he is a superstar and people are going to associate, oh, look again, another baseball superstar pop for steroids and we're going to have this argument go again. But it's different because at least again in the mid 2000s, I can make the argument that probably like 50% of baseball was using PEDs in some form or fashion. We got to the point where it's like we maybe get one or two suspensions a year and for it to be such a notable name like Fernando, it's not a good thing. It's not good for the health of baseball. [00:08:58][66.1]
Speaker 2: [00:08:59] Oh, absolutely. And you say we're going to rehash it the same way we rehashed it with Ryan Braun and Robinson Cano and rehashed it with that Biogenesis clinic where Alex Rodriguez is being chased around a parking lot by Pedro Gomez. Like, we can rehash it all again, but we don't have to like base casual baseball fans, baseball purists, whatever you want to call it. We don't have to do that. We could just let him serve the suspension, move on from it. And if he hits 40 home runs at age 24 season, we can celebrate him as one of the best players in. [00:09:29][30.3]
Speaker 1: [00:09:30] But he's going to have to take his lumps. Look at Jose Altuve. Altuve had that whole season after the trashcan scandal where he just had to take it on the chin from every fan in the stands, every baseball writer, media pundit. He just kind of had to sit there and take that punishment. And that's going to happen to Fernando when he comes back, when he eventually does come back there and hits his first home run. Think about the Bonds treatment. Fans throwing needles down on the stands. Obviously, it won't be to that degree, but I think that there are going to people who are people that like have their eyebrows just a little bit up whenever they think about like how he got there or what's he doing now or what is going to be his future in the game. Now for him, luckily, he signed that big ass contract with the Padres this past off season, I believe. So he's going to be with you guys a while regardless. But if you're ownership, part of signing an athlete is not only investing in them for their physical attributes, it's also for their mental attributes as well. So you have to be a little bit uncomfy if you're in the Padres front office and you made that move. The good thing for the Padres is you guys seem to be in this point where it's fucking well to spend all the money we can on pitching anyway. [00:10:37][67.4]
Speaker 2: [00:10:38] It's so. [00:10:38][0.2]
Speaker 1: [00:10:38] Cool. It's a good point that you guys be in, but it just sucks because I'm sure again, going back to your fan perspective, so a little bit of a beer away from it. You were picturing this lineup of Juan Soto Tatis Manny Machado. So how disappointing was that for you? [00:10:54][15.8]
Speaker 2: [00:10:55] I guess the same thing I said off the start. Like as disappointing as a fan should be around this, I'm not so devastated that I'm ready to burn my Fernando Tatis jersey, but at the same time, like, okay, tough break, but we still have an awesome team. It's going to be the best Padres team of my lifetime. Now, the best Padres team of my lifetime is either this team or the 2021 that had them coming back from down like seven runs and tatis pimp and bat flips. [00:11:20][24.9]
Speaker 1: [00:11:20] And again now it's just like we look at that. Not that I think that it was directly linked to that, but we just look at that and it just doesn't feel the same. [00:11:28][7.4]
Speaker 2: [00:11:29] Oh, not for me. It feels exactly the same. [00:11:30][1.6]
Speaker 1: [00:11:30] I'll never forget that era. And I'm just telling you, general consensus, people aren't happy, baseball fans aren't happy. But anyway, guys, let us know in the comments section below. What do you think of the situation? Can Fernando Tatis Jr ever ascend the Mt. Rushmore of current day baseball again? Drop one comments like on this video from Juju Talk Sports Kyle Ledbetter stay safe, happy and healthy. We'll see you next time. [00:11:30][0.0]
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