For a guy hitting .298 with one home run, two stolen bases, and a 103 wRC+ in July, it’s surprising to see Los Angeles’ Luis Rengifo owned in less than five percent of ESPN fantasy baseball leagues and Yahoo fantasy baseball leagues. However, over in NFBC formats, that mark is up to 36 percent. Sure, he hasn’t been a fantasy baseball MVP or even remotely close to a candidate for the 2022 MLB All-Star Game, but he’s been serviceable this year, slashing .253/.294/.389 with five home runs and three stolen bases across 55 games. When it comes to Rengifo, I do believe he’s worthy of being a fantasy baseball waiver wire pickup for the short term, and he’s the perfect candidate to toss in during a trade to net you a bigger impact player. He does just enough to maybe push a potential trade over the hump, and while he’s been good of late, he won’t make a noticeable impact on your fantasy team.

 

 

Luis Rengifo Fantasy Baseball Player Spotlight

 

Yes, he’s been solid here in July, especially from a batting average perspective, but despite hitting a solid .298, he only has a .327 OBP to show for it, largely in part to a minuscule 4.1 percent walk rate. Up until this year, he hasn’t done much at the plate for the Angels. From 2019-2021, he hit .216 with a .293 OBP and hit just 14 home runs with six stolen bases in 195 games played. During that stretch, he had a 67 wRC+ and -1.1 WAR.

Despite leaving the zone and whiffing more this season than the past couple of seasons, his strikeout rate has actually decreased, and to be honest, I don’t know how I feel about it. Something isn’t adding up here, and to me, something is going to give at some point, and I believe it’s going to be that strikeout rate.

 

Over time, trends tend to balance out and more or less begin to what the numbers suggest. Yes, his strikeout rate is up per his rolling average, but for the year as a whole, it’s down compared to years past. I’m no mathematician, but when everything is pointing one way, one would think that a correlated statistic would follow suit, right? In theory, yes. However, we are seeing less contact overall from Rengifo, as well as more whiffs and more swings out of the zone, yet, his strikeout rate is down. Well, we are starting to see some effects from this, as his 24.5 percent strikeout rate in July is his highest mark in any month of the 2022 season to date. For comparison’s sake, he posted a 15.9 percent and 16.9 percent mark in May and June respectively.

Given some injuries in the L.A. lineup, he’s going to play a good bit, but his plate discipline numbers are concerning, and while his batting average is below his expected batting average at the moment, his Statcast metrics don’t exactly inspire much confidence to buck his trend of being a low-.200s hitter for the season.

 

Per his expected statistics, one might think he’s underperforming. However, I’m not so sure.

 

xBA

Actual Batting Average

May

.286

.290

June

.267

.200

July

.254

.298

Courtesy of Baseball Savant and FanGraphs

But, Colby, it seems like all you have done is knock Rengifo, so why are you saying that we should pick him up? Honestly, the goal is to pick him up and take his production now, and then look to sell high by throwing him in a deal to push it over the top. He’s not a fantasy game-changer by any means, and if he isn’t going to hit for a decent average or start taking more walks, his long-term viability on your fantasy team decreases massively. He’s not a burner on the base paths, or a bopper in the batter’s box, making him just another guy in fantasy baseball. However, that doesn’t mean he’s devoid of trade value when it comes to pushing a deal over the top.

Rengifo is just 25 years old with 251 games in the majors under his belt, so there could be some development, but he seems to be overperforming at the moment, and we’re starting to see that strikeout rate catch up to him. Furthermore, in 251 games, 19 career home runs (42.9 AB/HR) and a 56.3 percent success rate on the base paths (9-for-16) leaves a lot to be desired, and that’s before we even talk about his .225/.294/.340 triple slash. He’s doing just enough to be worthy of a roster spot in deeper formats now, but I wouldn’t be attached to him long-term in any way. 

Statistical Credits:

fangraphs.com
baseballsavant.mlb.com

 

 

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