The Padres are expected to sign outfielder Carlos Rodriguez to a minor league deal, reports Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic. The agreement includes an invitation to MLB Spring Training. Not to be confused with the Brewers’ pitching prospect or the Rays’ executive of the same name, Rodriguez was most recently in the Braves’ system.
Rodriguez ranked among Atlanta’s top 30 prospects after signing in minor league free agency ahead of the 2025 campaign. FanGraphs and MLB.com both had him ranked at 25th. The 22-year-old torched Double-A pitching for 10 games, then moved up to Triple-A. Rodriguez posted an underwhelming .640 OPS with Gwinnett, but did pop a career-high eight home runs to go with 17 stolen bases. He hit minor league free agency once again at the conclusion of the season.
Milwaukee signed Rodriguez as an international free agent in 2017. He piled up knocks at the lower levels of the minors, hitting well over .300 in his first two professional seasons. Rodriguez slipped to a 91 wRC+ in his first attempt at High-A in 2021. He repeated the level in 2022 and delivered a respectable .268/.355/.415.
Rodriguez took a similar route at Double-A, producing close to league-average results in 2023 before putting together one of his best seasons to date in his second try. FanGraphs ranked Rodriguez (the outfielder) 34th among the Brewers’ prospects heading into the 2024 season. As a 23-year-old repeating Double-A, Rodriguez posted a career-best 130 wRC+ with more walks than strikeouts. The performance got him a bump to Triple-A, where his production fell off outside of strong plate discipline.
The 24-year-old Rodriguez will now get a chance to earn a big-league roster spot with San Diego. He’s performed well in the spring in back-to-back seasons, though the sample sizes are limited. Rodriguez went 6-for-13 over 10 spring games with the Brewers back in 2024. He had five hits and a stolen base over 16 at-bats with the Braves this past spring.
Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images
Rodriguez will head to El Paso and if he performs well will be in line for a call up if there are injuries to multiple Padres outfielders.
Padres outfield already set. Maybe he’ll make the team as 4th OF
Brooks is a FA, no?
He’s a minor league signee who is unlikely to sniff a call-up to the big league roster at any point in 2026, but could possibly eke out a brief appearance similar to Trenton Brooks.. He’s in the same bucket of signees as Brooks, Cole Roederer, Forrest Wall, and Mike Brosseau were last winter.
He must be better than Kelenic
Kelenic couldn’t beat out a water cooler!
Padres making all the right moves this off season strong off season so far
Not content with celebrating another title? You’ve turned into a very sad troll, Butters. Very sad.
If we eliminated all the “this move will make them world series champions” “another dumpster dive” “trade him for a bag of balls and a bucket of gum” the Padres fan with 128 different user names and the cards fan with 467 names we would only have 25 maybe 30 mlbtr members tops.
20-25
Butters needs a time out with PC principal.
To be fair, I have another account too, but I only use it when for some reason this one starts acting up, which hasn’t happened in a while thankfully..
I do as well but mlbtr wanted to put their thumb on the scales to inflate their numbers and refuse to send me a password reset link forcing me to create a new one.
I think I agree with your numbers. Although when there is a Carlos Santana article we get 5 additional members telling us how smooth the transaction is.
Just for fun how many Padres never heard that one before we can come up. In honor of gwynning 30th birthday.
Padres are broke so this is the only player type they can afford.
Can’t trade for anyone because AJ destroyed the farm system.
Pirates need hitting let’s trade them cronenworth for Keller Cruz Reynolds Santana. To be fair most teams fans do this Anduar Frazier anyone?
Preller on hot seat.
Running through the “MLBTR Worst Takes Greatest Hits” in one breath, AI! 🤣🍻
Happy birthday Gwynning. Today, you are….30 years old. Me and the boys pitched in …got you a sweater! And yes I would say we have a plethora of piñatas
Ned Nederlander is that you? I can’t even remember being 30 🤣🍻
Happy birthday Gwynning!
Happy Birtthday Gwynning!
I’ll remind you guys in mid-May when it swings around again… or I won’t! 🤪🤙🏽🍻 cheers fellas
We need to focus on prospects and move on from trades and signing 1 year rentals
Vegas, what is the problem with a 1 year rental?
I got Merrill Kelly for a 1 year deal (2 with an opt out) for the 3/4 slot.
Maybe some other guy willing to take a 1 year deal to beef up for next year for another 3/4 slot.
1 year deals are necessary and a good thing. The player can’t get the longterm deal he is looking for so has to settle for 1 year so is cheaper for the team. Long term commitment has more risk. It’s also a highly motivated player. With older players it’s just gambling. They can be finished but it’s only 1 year but if they aren’t finished it’s a tremendous value. Pirates Brewers Twins made out well with Santana. He did a lil bit of this lil bit of that for them. He could have done same with Cleveland or the music could have stopped. They paid to much but the 5 million Pirates Twins got him for was a high reward low risk gamble.
Low cost, high reward if he duplicates multiple years at one level to the majors. First year is a bust, second year is magical and inspiring. I wouldn’t expect much from him in first taste of MLB baseball. Second season, I’d be hopeful the magic begins. His track record states that much. Solid pick up for the Padres and will look like genius’s after a few years if this kid sticks.
They probably need to get a lot of infield prospects, get albies and Riley replacements in case they are still bad
Sale would get a lot of prospects maybe profar could get something too or Sean Murphy
The system is weak but in their defense, he was a super young signee with pedigree in a different organization. When he went to the Braves his career was already looking a bit rough but because he was still young and had pedigree it was easy to rank him in the top 30 of a weak system. MLB rankings always over state
A little weird not to include the Carlos Rodriguez already on the El Paso roster as one of the Carlos Rodriguezes (Rodrigui?) not to confuse him with.