The Padres and infielder Luis Rengifo are in agreement on a minor league contract, reports Dennis Lin of The Athletic. Rengifo, a client of Evolv Sports Management, was released by the Brewers earlier this week after being designated for assignment.
Rengifo, 29, signed a one-year deal with Milwaukee that guaranteed him $3.5MM. The Brewers had hoped to coax a rebound campaign of the veteran switch-hitter, who was a solid regular in Anaheim from 2022-24 but stumbled through a down season in 2025. It didn’t pan out. Rather than improve upon last year’s disappointing .238/.277/.335 batting line, Rengifo further wilted. He batted .205/.280/.254 without a home run in 209 trips to the plate.
That downturn in production came despite a career-low 11.1% strikeout rate and a 9.1% walk rate that nearly tied Rengifo’s career-best 9.2% mark, set back in 2023. This year’s exit velocity, hard-hit rate and barrel rate were all right in line with Rengifo’s 2022-24 levels, but he hit fewer line-drives and fly-balls while piling up far more grounders.
That’s not an ideal trade-off for a player with 43rd-percentile sprint speed (per Statcast), but Rengifo’s .233 average on balls in play still feels like it’s due for some positive regression. Statcast credited him with a .250 “expected” batting average and a .337 “expected” slugging percentage based on his batted-ball trends. That still wouldn’t have made him a particularly productive player, but it’d have been far closer to average output than the actual results we saw during his short stint as a Brewer.
During that 2022-24 stretch, Rengifo looked like a viable regular at either second base or third base. His glove didn’t draw great marks at either position, but Rengifo slashed a combined .273/.323/.431 with 39 homers, 36 steals and only a 16.5% strikeout rate in that time. By measure of wRC+, he was 11% better than average at the plate.
The Padres will hope for something closer to that form than the diminished version of Rengifo we’ve seen over the past two seasons. If he can get on track in Triple-A El Paso, Rengifo would give the Friars an option on what’s been a thin bench or perhaps a more regular role at second base. San Diego has been using Fernando Tatis Jr. there for some time now, although Jake Cronenworth recently went on a rehab assignment. Tatis, whose bat has begun to come around after a slow start, could always shift back to right field while Cronenworth sees time between second base, first base and designated hitter. Ty France has had a fine showing at first, but nearly all of his production has come against southpaws.
Obviously, that’s putting the cart before the horse. If Rengifo hits like he did in Milwaukee, he’s not going to factor into the Padres’ big league plans at all. But for a club that’s been struggling offensively and has limited farm assets to leverage on the trade market, it’s sensible enough to bring in a veteran reclamation project with a bit of defensive versatility and whose salary is being covered by his former club.
