The Padres Hope Jose Iglesias’ Hit Parade Continues

This year’s Padres lineup may not be made entirely out of current and former shortstops, but on Wednesday, they added one to the fold. Jose Iglesias, who revived his career with the Mets last season in impressive fashion while also scoring an unlikely pop hit with “OMG,” has agreed to a minor league deal with the Padres, one with a non-roster invitation to their major league camp.

Iglesias headed last week’s roundup of prominent position players still on the free agent market. That’s a particularly funny sentence to write, not only since this spring hasn’t exactly offered the second coming of the Boras Four, but because Iglesias (who did hire Scott Boras to represent him this past offseason) wasn’t in the majors at all in 2023 after playing with six different teams over the previous six seasons. Nonetheless, I led my overview with the 35-year-old infielder because his 2.5 WAR — a career high, accumulated in just 85 games — was tops among the group and because the arc of his 2024 season was so compelling.

Coincidentally enough, during Iglesias’ absence from the majors in 2023 he spent about six weeks with the Padres’ Triple-A El Paso affiliate. This came after he’d signed a minor league contract with the Marlins and gone through spring training with them; he opted out a few weeks into April without ever playing a regular season game within their organization. From there, he signed that minor league deal with the Padres, hitting .317/.356/.537 in 28 games at El Paso. He opted out twice to test the free agent waters but didn’t catch on elsewhere, and played his last game of the season on June 7.

In December 2023, Iglesias inked a minor league deal with the Mets. He spent the first two months of last season at Triple-A Syracuse, hitting a respectable .273/.309/.442. Amid a flurry of transactions on May 31 — a point when the Mets were 22-33 — the team optioned third baseman Brett Baty to Syracuse and called up Iglesias. Manager Carlos Mendoza slotted him into the lineup at second base against lefties in place of the struggling Jeff McNeil, and improbably, the career .283/.323/.386 (90 wRC+) hitter turned in a sizzling .337/.381/.448 (137 wRC+) line in 291 plate appearances. He helped the Mets rally to claim a Wild Card spot and advance all the way to the National League Championship Series. He was practically unstoppable against lefties, landing on a leaderboard among the game’s heaviest hitters:

That Ty Cobb-circa-1922 imitation was driven by an insane .456 batting average on balls in play against lefties. Meanwhile, Iglesias’ overall .382 BABIP ranked third among all hitters with at least 250 plate appearances. It’s not the first time he’s put up an improbably high BABIP; he did so in 2013 (.303/.349/.386, 102 wRC+, .356 BABIP) and ’20 (.373/.400/.556, 160 wRC+, .407 BABIP) as well. All of those seasons owe more to smaller-sample variance than to actually hitting the ball hard. Last year, his average exit velocity was just 85.8 mph — 0.4 mph off his career high, set in the shortened 2020 season — which would have placed in the sixth percentile if he’d had enough batted ball events to qualify. Similarly, his 2.2% barrel rate would have placed in the second percentile and his 30.6% hard-hit rate in the 10th. What made his approach work was his ability to find what Statcast now calls the launch angle sweet spot, which is to say balls struck with a launch angle between eight and 32 degrees. Iglesias’s 36.2% sweet-spot rate would have placed in the 74th percentile. As his spray chart suggests, he flared a flurry of hits over the heads of infielders into short right field.

For as unlikely as Iglesias’ hot bat was, his sudden pop stardom was even more unexpected. Since defecting from Cuba to the U.S. when he was 18 years old in 2008, he’s taken an interest in music production, and over the years he’s made numerous friends within the music industry, including singer Marc Anthony. During the 2023-24 offseason, under the stage name Candelita, he collaborated with Cuban singer Lenier on a song called “No Voy A Volver,” the video for which has since notched over 1.7 million views on YouTube. He also wrote “OMG,” a song about staying positive amid hard times.

Upon joining the Mets, Iglesias initially used the song as his walk-up music, and it became popular within the Mets clubhouse. Soon it was played at Citi Field after home runs, and it became such a sensation that its official release date was moved up by a week so that he could perform the song live after the Mets’ June 28 home game, immediately before it hit streaming services. It debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Song Sales chart, and the video has since received over 5.2 million views. Like the team’s embrace of McDonald’s mascot Grimace (who threw out the first pitch at a Citi Field game on June 12) and Pete Alonso’s playoff pumpkin, the song was one of those unlikely talismans that get absorbed into a winning season and become part of the lore.

Alas, Iglesias wound up on the outside looking in as the Mets assembled their roster for 2025. According to a report from Pat Ragazzo of Mets On SI, the team did offer him a one-year deal, which he declined because he wanted multiple years, a tall order given Iglesias’ age, modest track record, and likelihood of regression. Instead, the Mets signed Nick Madrigal in late January, and a couple weeks later, after re-signing Alonso, president of baseball operations David Stearns said that they intended to use Iglesias’ roster spot “to keep some avenues open for some of our younger players,” with Baty, Luisangel Acuña, and Ronny Mauricio the most likely beneficiaries of that flexibility. All have minor league options remaining, as does the 28-year-old Madrigal, though after sustaining a fractured left shoulder in late February, he underwent season-ending surgery.

The Mets downplayed the possibility of circling back to Iglesias after losing Madrigal, but whether or not that’s related to the timing of the infielder’s signing with the Padres is unknown. According to the New York Post’s Jon Heyman, Iglesias will get $3 million if makes the major league roster, and can make another $1 million in undisclosed incentives. As MLB Trade Rumors noted, as an Article XX(b) free agent — a player who finished the preceding season on a major league roster or injured list and has at least six years of service time — his minor league contract affords him three opt-out opportunities, one five days prior to Opening Day, the second on May 1, and the third on June 1.

As for how he fits in with the Padres, manager Mike Shildt said, “It’s all on the table” when it comes to position battles while noting that the newcomer “can play second, short and third very well. That’s a benefit of what we know coming in. This guy’s a proven defender regardless of where you put him.”

Realistically, Iglesias is no more than a backup shortstop at this stage, though he’s been 24 runs above average at the position during the Statcast era. Last year, he was one run above average apiece at both second base (in 477 innings) and third (in 130 innings). A contact-oriented hitter with little power (51 homers in 12 major league seasons), he’s a decent platoon option, a righty who owns a 125 wRC+ in 449 PA against lefties since the start of 2020, and a respectable 97 wRC+ in 970 PA against righties across that same span, meaning even if he had to play every day, he likely wouldn’t be a huge offensive liability. That said, our Depth Charts projection forecasts him for just a .265/.304/.369 (89 wRC+) line.

With Xander Bogaerts moving back to shortstop following Ha-Seong Kim’s signing with the Rays — a move that Bogaerts got a head start on when Kim was sidelined with a shoulder injury last September — the Padres infield appeared set, with Jake Cronenworth returning to second base and Luis Arraez playing first. Cronenworth split last season between first (80 starts) and second (66 starts), and defensively, he’s playable at both positions. Arraez moved between first (61 starts) and designated hitter (46 starts) last year while additionally spotting at second (six starts); he’s close to DH-caliber at first base (-3 DRS and -4 FRV in 524 innings). Cronenworth and Arraez both swing left-handed and have increasingly struggled against southpaws. Cronenworth has hit .215/.288/.307 (71 wRC+) against them in 326 PA over the past two seasons. Arraez hit just .271/.310/.333 (84 wRC+) in 204 PA against them last year and owns a 94 wRC+ in 466 PA against them over the past three seasons compared to a 132 wRC+ in 1,426 PA against righties.

Iglesias is well-suited to cover for either one, playing second while Cronenworth slots at first if Arraez is the odd man out or the DH. Righty Connor Joe, who’s also on the roster, could also play first if Shildt is feeling particularly platoon-minded, though his more natural fit is in left field as the short half of a platoon with Jason Heyward. If Iglesias does make the roster, it remains to be seen whether the team will carry super(?)-utilitymen Tyler Wade (a 30-year-old lefty) and Eguy Rosario (a 25-year-old righty). Wade owns a career 64 wRC+, hit for just a 56 wRC+ in 156 PA last year, and projects to produce a 73 wRC+. Rosario has hit for a 115 wRC+ in 100 PA in the majors, though just a 48 wRC+ in 24 PA last year; he projects for a much more serviceable 100 wRC+. Both have a sprinkling of experience in the outfield, though Rosario has yet to play the pasture in the majors. Notably, the latter is out of minor league options.

Like most minor league deals, Iglesias’ signing isn’t likely to be a high-impact move, but as he showed last year, he’s a useful player who can also add some good vibes to the team. Last week, he released a new single, “Solo Tu.” We’ll see if the hit parade continues in San Diego.

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