LOS ANGELES -- Two thousand miles west of Atlanta, where Bryce Harper and his Philadelphia Phillies engaged in a division title chase that ultimately came up short, Fernando Tatis Jr. contemplated a shift in priorities.
The San Diego Padres -- impressive at the start, stagnant in the middle, a disaster near the end -- had been mathematically eliminated from postseason contention on Saturday night. And so by Tuesday afternoon, hours before the start of a series that should have meant significantly more than it did, Tatis sat inside Dodger Stadium's visiting dugout and began to turn his focus toward an individual award that remained within reach.
The hollowness was not lost on him.
"It's really hard, especially with the huge expectations they had for us as a team," Tatis said of continuing on with the playoffs no longer possible. "It's just hard. Simple as that."
Despite the Padres' shortcomings, Tatis, 22, is locked in what still seems like a wide-open race for the National League's Most Valuable Player Award -- alongside Harper, who willed the Phillies to the edge of contention, and Juan Soto, who is reaching base at rates not seen since Barry Bonds. Harper leads in weighted runs created plus, Soto leads in wins above replacement and Tatis leads in home runs.
Tatis' biggest drawback -- aside from playing on a team suddenly out of the mix, a circumstance also faced by Harper and Soto -- might be missing too many games.
But that also helps capture why his season has been so impressive.
Tatis' 2021 -- consisting of a .979 OPS, 42 home runs and 25 stolen bases in 127 games -- has seen him overcome at least five partially dislocated left shoulders this calendar year, two of which sent him to the injured list. He wore a brace, spent some time in the outfield and learned to swing by keeping both hands on the bat in his follow-through, a drastic mechanical tweak that, he said, sapped some of his plate coverage.
Asked what he proved to himself, Tatis said: "That I can overcome anything in the middle of my way. I can just go through it, and I feel like my head is in a really great spot, just overcoming all that stuff. I'm pretty sure I'm really strong mentally."
Tatis admits he was initially worried about continually playing through a shoulder that suffered what was described as a slight labral tear during a violent swing on April 5. But he remained diligent with his strengthening exercises and said he believes he was helped by taking care of his body at an early age, the importance of which was stressed upon by his father, Fernando Tatis, who played 11 seasons in the major leagues.
The younger Tatis remains "open-minded" about the possibility of undergoing offseason shoulder surgery but has yet to make a final decision.
"I feel like I'm in a great spot," Tatis said. "I've been talking to my trainers and to my physical therapist and they say that my shoulder's feeling stronger, how it was before I started to get injured, and I feel like I'm in a really good spot to forget about the surgery right now."
At the moment, his focus is on the MVP -- and becoming only the fourth player to win one before his age-23 season, joining Stan Musial, Johnny Bench, Vida Blue and Harper himself in 2015.
Tatis' slash line (.281/.365/.614) is topped slightly by those of Harper (.305/.427/.607) and Soto (.318/.467/.543), but he leads the NL in average exit velocity. Tatis has put up most of his numbers at the premium position of shortstop, but outs above average has rated Soto as a more impactful defender. Soto has the edge in the WAR metrics provided by FanGraphs, Baseball-Reference and Baseball Prospectus, but his Washington Nationals have been out of contention for most of the year. Soto (178) and Harper (176) hold an edge in park-adjusted OPS, but they reside in the inferior NL East. Compelling cases can also be made for Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Trea Turner, San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford and St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, all of whom will take part in the postseason.
In other words, it's complicated.
Tatis -- admittedly biased -- believes the MVP should go to him.
"The numbers are there," said Tatis, who leads the majors in slugging percentage. "It's as simple as that. Also, you add a little bit of what we talked about -- coming back from injuries, just performing no matter what. I feel like I had a pretty great year, individually."
That part is undisputed, even within the context of a Padres campaign that flamed out in epic fashion.
The 2021 season, on the heels of the franchise's first postseason appearance in 15 years, was supposed to mark the Padres' ascension into championship contention. They traded for Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove, three frontline starters who would join a dynamic position-player group and challenge the Dodgers for NL West supremacy. But an encouraging start was mired by letdown performances against inferior opponents, paving the way for a full-on collapse against a brutal schedule down the stretch.
The Padres' starters ultimately didn't pitch deep enough into games, which meant their bullpen took on too much of a burden. The offense -- aside from Tatis, Manny Machado and Jake Cronenworth -- underperformed. And an inability to land Max Scherzer before the trade deadline essentially sealed their fate. Over the past few weeks, as the Padres' slide continued, people throughout the industry began to reference a volatile clubhouse environment caused by a disconnect between players and upper management -- one triggered by Eric Hosmer trade rumors and seemingly punctuated by Machado shouting in Tatis' face on Sept. 18.
Three days later, Machado, 29, stood by Tatis' side and talked about how the emotions of a high-stakes environment got the best of them both, saying: "This is my little brother. We're here to always be together. And we're going to always be together, no matter what."
When asked if the Padres' clubhouse environment had become a problem, Tatis said: "I feel like we have such a huge, open-minded team. We come together. And the special thing is, we talk. We talk. No matter what, we put everything out there. And I feel like everybody's professional enough to take, and let go, of any situation that we've had in the past. I don't think there's a clubhouse issue over here."
Machado joined the Padres with a 10-year, $300 million contract in February 2019, a deal that signaled the team's intentions of competing with the behemoths of its sport. Tatis, famously acquired for James Shields in June 2016, signed a 14-year, $340 million extension in February 2021 with a mere 143 major league games under his belt. A spectacular rookie season in 2019 was cut short by a back injury, and an equally impressive sophomore season in 2020 was limited to 59 regular-season games because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the 2021 season progressed, Tatis heard persistent doubt surrounding both his contract and his shoulder.
It fueled him.
"It just keeps me pushing," Tatis said, "because people are always talking negative. You see how much they really care, how much they're on top of you."
Among the 23 players who have finished within the top three in their respective league in both home runs and stolen bases throughout history, only Ty Cobb did so before age 23 and only Honus Wagner did so as a shortstop. Tatis is poised to join them both. If he manages one more double, he'll become the 11th player -- and the youngest among them -- to match 40 home runs with 25 stolen bases and 30 doubles in the same season.
He overcame the pressure of a massive contract at a young age, shook off the head-scratching defensive struggles that plagued the early part of his season and managed a tender, uncooperative left shoulder for most of the summer.
It didn't push the Padres into the postseason, but it might still win him an MVP.
"It would mean a lot," Tatis said. "For me, it's always been a dream to win MVP and it's always been a goal. If you wanna be the best player, one of the best players in the game, that's totally something you have to aim for."