Leonardo Reginatto

Leonardo Alfonso Reginatto

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2", Weight 180 lb.

• Born April 10, 1990 in Curitiba Brazil

BR Minors page

Biographical Information

Leonardo Reginatto has played as high as AAA.

Reginatto was 3 for 25 with a double and two walks as one of Brazil's lighter hitters in the 2008 Americas Baseball Cup; though he was only 18, he was not the team's youngest member. He signed with the Tampa Bay Rays in February 2009. He had a good pro debut with the 2009 VSL Rays, hitting .328/.369/.403 though he fielded .897 as a utility infielder. He finished sixth in the Venezuelan Summer League in average.

With the 2010 Princeton Rays, he hit .279/.323/.344 in 16 games. Coming stateside in 2011, he moved to 3B with the Hudson Valley Renegades. He fielded .951 and stole 11 bases in 14 tries but hit only .198/.254/.251. He led New York-Penn League third basemen in both fielding percentage and double plays (20). As a 3B/SS for the '12 Renegades, he posted a batting line of .276/.329/.323.

Reginatto then suited up for Brazil again, in the 2013 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers. He was one of the top players on any team in the four qualifiers. In Brazil's opener, he scored twice in a 3-2 upset of host Panama. He had three hits in a win over Colombia and had the game-winning run for the second straight contest. In the finale, also against Panama, he had three more hits in a 1-0 win as Brazil made their first World Baseball Classic. He finished at .583/.615/.667 with 3 runs and 2 RBI in the three games. He led Brazil in average (.219 over Reinaldo Sato), runs (tied for first with future big leaguer Paulo Orlando), OBP (.186 ahead of future MLBer Yan Gomes), slugging (.167 better than JC Muniz), OPS (397 ahead of Muniz) and RBI (tied with Muniz and Gomes). For all four qualifiers, he tied Scott Campbell for second in average (behind Mike Cervenak), tied Yung-Chi Chen and Chien-Ming Chang for 6th in OBP and tied for first in hits.

In the 2013 World Baseball Classic itself, he again led the Brazilian attack. In the opener, he nearly led to an upset of two-time defending champion Samurai Japan. He singled off Masahiro Tanaka in the first to score Orlando and give Brazil the lead. In the 4th, he doubled off Toshiya Sugiuchi and was driven in by Sato to tie it at two. Then in the 5th, he doubled in Orlando to go up 3-2 but Brazil wound up losing, 5-3. For the Classic, he batted .364/.417/.545. He tied Muniz for the Brazilian lead in average and OBP, led in slugging (.128 ahead of Muniz), tied Orlando for the most runs (2), led in RBI (2) and led in OPS (.182 ahead of Tiago Magalhães).

With the Bowling Green Hot Rods that summer, he played mostly SS (62 games) but also played 24 games at 3B, 13 at 2B and 6 in LF. He continued his hot hitting at .325/.388/.393. He nearly won the Midwest League batting title, falling .001 shy of Andrew Toles, while placing 7th in OBP (between Joey Rickard and Michael Reed). He split 2014 between the Charlotte Stone Crabs (.316/.384/.371 in 94 G) and Montgomery Biscuits (.130/.254/.130 in 17 G), going 14-for-16 in steal attempts overall (all with Charlotte). He again finished second in a batting race, .019 behind Florida State League leader Josh Bell. He was 4th in OBP, between Cam Maron and Gioskar Amaya. He was named to the FSL All-Star team at shortstop.

Reginatto spent 2015 bouncing between the Biscuits (.271/.347/.395 in 58 G) and Durham Bulls (.267/.286/.320 in 42 G), being transferred five times. He played 24-38 games at each 2B, SS and 3B and also seeing time at LF and P (1-1, 1 R in 3 IP). A free agent, he signed with the Minnesota Twins. He hit .270/.328/.337 in 109 games for the Chattanooga Lookouts, fielding .987 at short. He also batted .241/.265/.278 in 23 games for the Rochester Red Wings. To that point, he had a .281 average in 653 games in the US minors.

He was one of Brazil's most-established players for the 2016 World Baseball Classic Qualifiers as Orlando and Gomes were busy in the majors during the 2016 qualifying times. He again was one of their top performers at the plate. In their opener, he drove in their first run in a win over Pakistan, hitting into a run-scoring force to bring in Gabriel Maciel. In game 2, he had two of their three hits in a 1-0 loss to Israel. In their third game, in the semifinals, his two-run single off Blake Taylor gave them most of their offense in a 4-3 loss but his two-run error at short proved critical as well (he had played 3B the first two games). For the qualifiers, he hit .417/.462/.417 with 3 steals, 2 runs and 3 RBI. He led Brazil in hits (5) and RBI, tied for the most runs, led in average for the third straight Classic or Classic Qualifiers (.017 ahead of Dante Bichette Jr.), was second in OBP (.076 behind Bichette) and was 3rd in OPS (behind Bichette and Muniz). He tied Maciel for the most steals in any of the four qualifiers that year.

From 2006-2016, in the World Baseball Classic and its Qualifiers, he was among the top hitters. His 16 hits were tied with Miguel Tejada and David Wright for 10th (despite fewer games than those MLB stars) and his three steals were tied for 5th (two behind Ichiro Suzuki, Jimmy Rollins and Alan Schoenberger). Among players with 20+ AB, he was tied for 5th in OBP (.500) and 3rd in average (.457, behind Cervenak and Chris Robinson). If you raise the cut-off to 30 AB, he had the best average (.002 ahead of Justin Morneau) and was third in OBP (behind Frederich Cepeda and Morneau).

Sources

• 2008 Americas Baseball Cup Final Report
• 2010 Rays Media Guide
• 2010 and 2012 Baseball Almanacs
• World Baseball Classic