Infielder Luis Rengifo won his arbitration hearing against the Angels, tweets MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand. He’ll earn the $2.3M salary he and his representatives filed, rather than the team’s $2M submission.
Rengifo appeared in a career-high 127 games in 2022 and tallied 511 plate appearances, batting .264/.294/.429 with 17 home runs, 22 doubles, four triples and six steals. He bounced all over the infield, logging 693 innings at second base, 250 innings at third base and 99 innings at shortstop (in addition to a 15-inning cameo in the outfield).
That marked the most productive season of a four-year career for Rengifo, who entered the season as a .216/.293/.325 hitter in 702 trips to the plate. The strong showing perhaps contributed to the Angels’ decision not to make a strong push for shortstop help this offseason. Instead, they’ll likely rely on a combination of Rengifo, David Fletcher and perhaps trade acquisition Gio Urshela to handle the bulk of the workload at shortstop.
Slick-fielding Andrew Velasquez remains on the 40-man roster as well, though he also has a minor league option left. Infield prospect Livan Soto is another candidate, although his brilliant .400/.414/.582 showing in an 18-game MLB debut last year was propped up by a .500 batting average on balls in play that clearly can’t be sustained over a larger sample. He’s also yet to play a single inning at the Triple-A level, so the Halos might want to give him some additional development time. A free agent like Elvis Andrus could conceivably fit in Anaheim, but the Angels generally appear set with their infield depth given the combination of Rengifo, Fletcher, Urshela and free-agent pickup Brandon Drury.
This was the first trip through the arbitration process for Rengifo, who’ll be eligible for arbitration twice more before reaching free agency upon completion of the 2025 campaign.
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