Fernando Tatis Jr. is apparently back in the good graces of fans.
Days after winning his first Gold Glove in his first year in right field, Tatis on Friday was named the NL’s Platinum Glove Award-winner, an honor that combined an international fan vote with the Society for American Baseball Research’s Defensive Index to name the best overall defender in each league.
Online voting began after Tatis was named a Gold Glover on Sunday.
Guardians second baseman Andres Gimenez was named the AL winner.
Tatis is the first Padre and the first outfielder from the NL to win the award, which began in 2011.
The Gold and Platinum gloves are Tatis’ first honors since he was suspended in 2022 for performance-enhancing drugs, a ban that included the first 20 games of this season.
Still, his numbers at the All-Star break in his first year in right field — .871 OPS, 16 homers, 14 steals in 70 games — were worthy of inclusion, but the fans did not vote him into the starting lineup as they did in 2021 and the players left him off the roster as a reserve.
Four months later, Tatis can add two significant pieces of hardware to his mantel, the Gold Glove decided on by a combination of managers/coaches and SABR’s metric and the Platinum Glove awarded by a combination of a fan vote and SABR.
