SAN DIEGO — Jurickson Profar is hitting .322 with a better average and on-base percentage than Juan Soto, the superstar outfielder he replaced for the mere price of $1 million, and it can be difficult to explain how a 31-year-old who was the least valuable player in the majors last summer is leading a San Diego Padres offense that still has a few superstars.
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Location might be as good an answer as any.
You could start in Arizona this past spring training, when Profar went hitless in six of the 10 Cactus League games he started. Or in the Dominican Republic during the 2023-24 winter ball season, when Profar hit .206 in 21 contests for Estrellas Orientales. The results then did not matter as much as they do now. To hear Profar tell it, the people he was around made the most impactful difference — people like close friend and Padres teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. and Tatis’ father, former big leaguer and current Estrellas manager Fernando Tatis Sr.
“Winter ball’s different than the big leagues,” Profar said recently. “But playing there, it just kind of helped me a little bit here because I was talking to Fernando’s dad and he just unlocked the baseball side of me that I left. Because here, it’s all about homers and I was trying to do a lot of that stuff. And going down there, he just brought back the game of baseball.”
Profar was standing at his locker in a seaside city he likens to his native Curaçao. Petco Park has been the home base for two of his best seasons. It could end up being the site of his finest season yet, even if his torrid production does not last. Profar has played for four big-league teams, but no setting has agreed with him as much as San Diego.
“I feel like everybody has a different pace of learning and showing their skills,” said Tatis Jr., the Padres’ star right fielder. “I feel like definitely something clicked for Pro, and I’m just happy for the results that he’s having and the type of player that he has become this year.”
¡Curazao! 🇨🇼 ¡Jurickson Profar sigue encendido! #ElExtrabase⚾️ pic.twitter.com/xjBII5ndAJ
— El Extrabase ⚾️ (@ElExtrabase) May 14, 2024
Talent was never the issue. Before he required two shoulder surgeries, Profar was the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball. He later established himself as a serviceable if unspectacular big leaguer, then as a beloved teammate and feisty presence with the Padres. San Diego rewarded him with a three-year, $21 million contract before the 2021 season, and two years later, Profar exercised his right to opt out in search of a more lucrative salary.
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His free agency ended in relative disappointment. Profar settled late last March for a one-year, $7.75 million deal with the Colorado Rockies. He did not appear in a Cactus League game before he made his Rockies debut last April — fittingly, perhaps, at Petco Park. But he never truly fit. Profar hit .236 with eight home runs despite playing half his games at elevation. He struggled in Coors Field’s spacious left field. By the time the Rockies released him on Aug. 27, Profar had contributed minus-1.8 fWAR, the worst total in the majors.
“Last year was a very difficult year since the beginning,” Profar said. “You know, signing late. There was the mental part as a human being, just sitting at home. It was a lot of frustration. The mental state, it wasn’t there.
“It never clicked. And also, the environment too. … It didn’t match, you know? Yes. It didn’t match my style of play.”
So Profar went back to a familiar location, signing a minor-league deal with the Padres a few days after his release and resurfacing in the big leagues on Sept. 9. From then until the end of the season, Profar hit .295 with a .367 on-base percentage even as San Diego — a team that never clicked until it was too late — went 15-5.
In the winter, Profar traveled to the Dominican Republic, where he had trained with the Tatises before a largely successful 2022 season. He played winter ball for the first time in a decade. He regained a greater appreciation for such fundamentals as a well-executed bunt and a well-timed stolen base. He rediscovered a certain joy playing for and speaking with Tatis Sr., who also has been credited with helping such players as Ronald Acuña Jr. and Elly De La Cruz.
“Just normal baseball talks that he has with his own son, too,” Profar said. “Just having fun and playing.”
“My dad loves preaching — I’m not gonna call it old-school, but just the right way of playing baseball,” Tatis Jr. said. “And it is taking all the game is giving you at the time, having a feel for the game, seeing the small details and just going out there and competing to the best of our capabilities. He tries to preach how small baseball leads to big.”
In February, fielding limited interest from other clubs, Profar made what felt like a no-brainer decision: He signed a one-year, $1 million guarantee with a Padres team that had traded Soto to the New York Yankees and was moving shortstop prospect Jackson Merrill to bolster an outfield in glaring need of help. And he returned to training daily with San Diego’s star right fielder.
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“We always talk about hitting, and obviously we work out with his dad,” Profar said. “So I can see something that’s off on (Tatis Jr.) and tell him, ‘Hey, this is off.’ Or he can see something that’s off on me. And he fixed something in my (pre-swing) load in spring training. And since that day … I know the numbers didn’t say it, but I was crushing the ball in spring training. So it just clicked then.”
Since the Padres left Arizona, Profar has registered an average exit velocity more than 3 mph above his career norm. He has adopted a slightly more aggressive approach at the plate while continuing to demonstrate familiar plate discipline. He ranks second on the team in walks, home runs and runs scored, and he is first in average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. His average launch angle is its lowest in a full season in six years.
Profar does not view it as a coincidence that he made consistent hard contact back then, as well.
“It was something that I was doing before,” Profar said. “In 2018, with the Rangers, I had a really good year, too. I was doing that.
“But then I went away from it, trying to launch,” he added, pantomiming an upper-cut swing.
Profar spent that 2018 season playing with such standouts as Elvis Andrus (“He’s like an older brother”) and Adrián Beltré (“Beltré’s like a dad”) before signing with the Oakland A’s and debuting with the Padres. Now back in San Diego, he is again among teammates he considers like family, Tatis in particular.
“They seem like they’re hard on each other, but it’s in a good way,” Padres hitting coach Victor Rodriguez said. “They talk crap to each other, but it’s in a good way. They get each other going.”
While Tatis has yet to go on an extended hot streak, Profar has been the bargain of the offseason and the biggest surprise on a team weighed down by underperforming superstars. The Padres already might have descended into irrelevance were it not for Profar. Among major-league position players, he ranks 18th in fWAR.
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“Jurickson is just giving his all, paying attention to all the details,” Tatis said. “And he just rises to the occasion.”
Rodriguez points out that Profar, along with the likes of Merrill and first baseman Jake Cronenworth, has buoyed the Padres while they wait for more production from others. “He competes every day,” said Rodriguez, who calls Profar a “blessing.” “He’s a complete professional and (makes) a big impact in everything that he does off the field and on the field.”
There is no guarantee, of course, that long-awaited production will come. For now, the Padres are receiving far more than virtually anyone predicted from Profar, who considers himself an exception.
This, he claims, is the player he always knew he could be. And San Diego, he says, is where he fits best.
(Top photo of Jurickson Profar rounding the bases after a homer: Griffin Quinn / Getty Images)