Before being able to help lift a franchise, Wil Myers had to be strong enough to understand he might not be able to do so.

“The biggest thing is I had to accept the fact my wrist may never be healthy again,” Myers said. “That was tough. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! I might never be able to be 100 percent again.’ That was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to deal with.”

It was in sessions with a sports psychologist this offseason that the man the Padres hope embodies the franchise’s future came to be OK with whatever the future held.

“I’ll tell you this, I had a real tough time with it,” Myers said. “It wasn’t one of those things where, ‘I’m injured and it’s going to heal and I’m going to be fine.’ It messes with you. ... It’s a tough thing when you play baseball from age 5 to 25 and it’s taken away from you for two years in a row. That’s something I wouldn’t wish upon anybody.


“I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel when I started hitting again. I had to accept that when I go in and hit, it might not be the same, and regardless of what happens I’m going to be OK. It was tough to accept.”

He did accept it. Then he started to hit in early February, and his wrist was fine.

That was good for everyone involved, because besides Myers being able to let go, it is important that he be able to hold onto a bat, something he couldn’t do very well for much of 2014 and ’15.

Fact is, we don’t know how good Myers can be. He simply hasn’t been healthy for sustained stretches since initially injuring his wrist two months into the 2014 season. He has made just 614 plate appearances over the last two seasons. The American League Rookie of the Year with the Tampa Bay Rays in ’13 sure looked that good for the first 30 games or so of last season, batting .298 and scoring a league-high 28 runs before jamming his wrist during a collision on May 10. He played in 28 games the rest of the year.


Give Myers credit for taking cortisone shots and re-taping his wrist between so many at-bats while trying to play through the injury. Too, for playing the final month of last season despite his wrist still being weak following June surgery to remove bone spurs.

“I finally got the surgery I needed,” he said.

Now, entering his second season with the Padres and his first as the team’s full-time first baseman, Myers seems as ready as the rest of us — more so — to make the steep climb from endearing promise to enduring performance.

“Mentally, I feel like I’m as strong as I ever have been,” he said. “That’s important to me, because this game is so mental. I feel like I’m in a really good place right now.”


Good. There is still time for this particular investment to pay off. Myers was always considered by Padres decision-makers to be the nucleus of the 2015 talent grab. Whatever Justin Upton, Matt Kemp, James Shields, Derek Norris or Craig Kimbrel provided, it was Myers around whom the team envisioned building.

Myers is aware of this. He’s fine with it, if not outright owning it.

“That’s a really cool thing,” he said. “... When you’re growing up, you always think about being the best player on the team, ‘the guy’ or whatever. But we have so many guys on this team. Shields, (Jon) Jay, Kemp. Those are the guys everybody looks to. I look to them, too, for advice.”

That’s deference, not disinclination. Whatever doubts Myers had about the durability of his surgically repaired wrist, the process did nothing to dent the kind of confidence he will need to be all the Padres want (need) him to be.


He isn’t cocky. Myers’ confidence comes across as an earnest precociousness.

“I do believe I have the ability to have a great year,” he said. “I will not say I have the ability to be the guy, because we have so many guys here. It’s not a one-man thing. I do believe, though, if I get the at-bats, I can do a lot in those 600 at-bats. ... I’ve never had a bad year when I’ve been completely healthy. I really do believe in my talents. I think I’m extremely talented and I think I have a lot of ability in this game. I know I can be a great player. I know if I stay healthy, then I’m going to have a good year.”

He recalled a conversation with his father before leaving for sprint training in February.

“I said, ‘I really feel like 2014 and ’15 have prepared me for 2016,’ ” Myers recalled. “I dealt with a lot of downs. I feel like mentally and physically, it made me stronger.”