Padres Hunter Renfroe Named to Team of the Week

The Padres Hunter Renfroe was named to Baseball Pipeline’s Prospect Team of the Week after a strong finish to the week helped him earn his first Player of the Week honors since 2014 in the Arizona Fall League. He bumps up to third in the Pacific Coast League for slugging and 5th for OPS. He also earned Pacific Coast League Player of the Week.

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Renfroe hit his first four home runs of the season in the final four games of last week, also netting him 6 RBI in that span. For the season so far he is hitting .339 with a .381 OBP.

For the Baseball Pipeline Team, he was joined on that team by the Rockies top rated prospect SS Brendan Rogers, Cubs number 3 prospect Ian Happ, Pirates #3 prospect Josh Bell, and Yankees #3 C Gary Sanchez. Pretty good company.

The Padres outfield is a tricky one to deal with right now. Melvin Upton Jr.is getting on base at a great clip and batting cleanup, while Jon Jay is hitting away and Matt Kemp is off to a very productive start to the season. Both Upton Jr and Kemp have large contracts that could be moved at the trade deadline but perhaps not easily. If Jay is traded presumably Upton Jr could move over to Center Field and Renfroe could be plugged into left field later in the season.

Next: Padres Great Rule 5 Experiment

Renfroe is still prone to swing and miss and be streaky, so the Padres won’t promote him too quickly until he gets a little more experience at AAA. Since being promoted at the end of last season he has looked better in AAA than nearly any other minor league level. Of course, Padres #1 rated prospect CF Manuel Margot is also in AAA and picking things up himself. He is now up to .293 with a home run and 5 steals. Minor league production with productive major league trade pieces is exactly what the Padres were looking to see in a season of rebuilding.