The San Diego Padres have signed infielder Jose Miranda to a minor league contract that includes an invitation to spring training, giving the 27-year-old corner infielder a chance to restart his career after a difficult 2025 season with the Minnesota Twins.
For Miranda, who was released by the Twins earlier this season after struggling at Triple-A St. Paul, this signing represents a fresh opportunity to show he still has something left in the tank after what was once a very promising career in Minnesota took a sharp turn downward.
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Miranda’s Rise and Fall With the Twins
It wasn’t long ago that Miranda looked like a key piece of the Twins’ future, as he made his major league debut in May 2022 and quickly showed he belonged at the highest level.
He won American League Rookie of the Month honors in July 2022 when he hit .353 with five home runs and 19 RBI while putting together one of the hottest stretches any Twins rookie has ever had.
Miranda bounced back from a tough 2023 campaign with a strong 2024 season where he batted .284 with nine home runs and 49 RBI across 121 games, and at one point he tied a major league record by getting hits in 12 straight at-bats during a July stretch against the Tigers and Astros.
That production made him look like a reliable middle-of-the-order bat for years to come.
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But 2025 brought a stunning collapse that nobody saw coming.
Miranda made the Opening Day roster but hit just .167 with 13 strikeouts in 36 plate appearances through 12 games before being sent down to Triple-A St. Paul, and things only got worse from there when a freak accident while carrying bottled water at Target injured his hand and derailed any momentum he had hoped to build in the minors.
He finished the season hitting .195 with a .569 OPS in 90 games at Triple-A, and his once reliable bat-to-ball skills seemed to vanish completely.
The Twins finished with a 70-92 record in 2025 and removed Miranda from their 40-man roster in November, at which point he elected free agency rather than accept an outright assignment.
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How the Padres Could Use Miranda in 2026
For the Padres, who went 90-72 last season and reached the postseason before falling to the Cubs in the Wild Card Series, this is a simple low-risk gamble on a player who could provide depth at the corner infield spots.
Miranda has experience at both third base and first base, and if he can rediscover even a portion of the form he showed in 2024, he could be a useful piece for a team looking to compete again in 2026.
The signing comes with minimal cost attached since it’s a minor league deal, which means San Diego has nothing to lose by giving Miranda a shot to prove himself in spring training and see if he can work his way back to the majors.
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At just 27 years old, Miranda still has time to turn things around if he can figure out what went wrong during his disastrous 2025 campaign.
Miranda owns a .263 career batting average with 28 home runs and 133 RBI across four seasons in the majors, and the Padres are betting that the player who tied a league record with consecutive hits less than two years ago is still in there somewhere waiting to break out again.