Fernando Tatis Jr. takes home the 2021 N.L. Silver Slugger award

It’s official: Fernando Tatis Jr. has won the 2021 National League Silver Slugger award for the shortstop position. This is his second consecutive Silver Slugger, as Tatis won the award in 2020 as well in the short season.

This season didn’t start out so well for the Padres star shortstop but he turned it around and consistently produced all year, as long as he was on the field. Tatis finished 2021 first in home runs (42), first in RBI (97), first in slugging percentage (.611), third in average (.282), and third in on-base percentage (.364) among all National League shortstops.

He missed 32 games this season with a majority of games missed due to multiple subluxations so it makes it that more impressive that he was able to finish that high in all of the major offensive categories despite all of the missed time. I haven’t even mentioned that he did all this before and after literally having to change his swing in the middle of the year to try and limit the strain placed on his left shoulder on his follow through.

According to MLB.com, this Silver Slugger win for Tatis makes him just the fifth player in Major League history to win multiple Silver Sluggers before the age of 23 years old. The other four players to do so are Juan Soto, Ronald Acuna Jr., Fernando Valenzuela, and some guy named Mike Trout.

Congratulations to Fernando!