In comments to reporters (including Kevin Acee of the San Diego Post-Tribune), manager Bob Melvin confirmed his plans for the Padres’ outfield in 2023. After spending all of 2021 and 2022 in right field, superstar Juan Soto will be shifting back to left field, where he spent most of the 2018-20 seasons, for the upcoming campaign. Soto graded out well as a defender in right over the course of the 2021 season, but defensive metrics soured on his glovework in 2022, when he rated as the second-worst defender in all of baseball by Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric with an OAA of -16.

Elsewhere in the outfield, Fernando Tatis Jr. figures to be a regular starter once he has finished serving his suspension for PED usage. Tatis, of course, had primarily played shortstop to this point in his career, but Xander Bogaerts now figures to fill that position on the diamond following the Padres signing him to an 11-year deal earlier this offseason. With Tatis now displaced, he appears poised to get regular starts in right field once he’s eligible to return in late April.

While right field figures to be where Tatis finds most of his playing time, Acee notes the star slugger has his eye on another position: center field. While Tatis is certainly athletic enough to handle center field, having already logged 56 innings at the position in his career, it seems unlikely that he would displace incumbent center fielder Trent Grisham, who won a Gold Glove for his work up the middle in 2022. That being said, Grisham struggled at the plate in 2022, slashing a meager .184/.284/.341 (83 wRC+) in 524 plate appearances.

Given Grisham’s offensive struggles, it stands to reason that Tatis could still slide over to center on occasion, opening up right field for a player like Matt Carpenter, Jose Azocar, or Brandon Dixon. This would make particular sense against left-handed pitchers, over whom either Azocar or Dixon would hold a platoon advantage in contrast to Grisham’s same-handed bat.

For his part, Melvin was non-committal as to where Tatis will play once he can return from his suspension, noting the club has to get through not only Spring Training, but the first 20 games of the regular season before Tatis can play anywhere. That being said, he did admit he could see Tatis moving around the field to play multiple positions as necessary, leaving open the possibility Tatis could get some starts in center over the course of the 2023 season.