Rodriguez was signed as an international free agent in December 2010 and steadily improved through three seasons of rookie ball. He began 2015, his age 22 season, by bizarrely skipping two levels to make a couple AAA appearances a month apart from each other before returning to repeat low A. Now a full time reliever, he had thrown 102.2 innings of 3.07 ERA (4.07 FIP) the previous season, split across 12 starts and 17 relief appearances.
Then he tore his UCL and missed the last several weeks of 2015 and all of 2016. Once back on the mound in 2017, Rodriguez looked like a different pitcher and potential future relief ace, racking up 17 saves across high A and AA en route to earning a call to the big leagues shortly before his 24th birthday, skipping AAA entirely.
Rodriguez appeared in 16 MLB games in 2017, and despite a 6.23 ERA (4.81 xFIP), he pumped the zone with 95 MPH fastballs, sliders and the occasional curveball across thirteen innings and held his own. Rodriguez allowed three home runs in his first 13 MLB innings, which is almost entirely responsible for his high ERA, demonstrated by the nearly 1.5 run gap between his ERA and xFIP. In 263.1 career minor league innings up to this point, he had only allowed 10 home runs, a fantastic rate.
Let’s get back to what earned him this ahead-of-schedule promotion. Combining his two stops, across 47 innings he allowed only 24 hits and 10 walks while striking out an impressive 61 batters. Rodriguez hadn’t run double digit K/9 rates since rookie ball, and the young reliever who shows skill in limiting walks and home runs with swing-and-miss stuff is the setup arm of tomorrow. He allowed a run in only three of his thirty five appearances.
Similar to Beckham, Rodriguez dealt with a March 2018 injury but hit the disabled list for his, missing the first two months with a biceps issue. Once healthy, he showed 2017 was no fluke and thrived in his first meaningful AAA exposure. Across 25.2 innings at a 2.45 ERA (3.53 xFIP), Rodriguez posted a 9.47 K/9 and a 1.4 BB/9, and he surrendered only a single home run.
Rodriguez earned two brief stints in the majors to cover for injuries, but he only appeared in four games, despite the fact that Texas’ season was over almost as soon as it began. The team lost 95 games, finished 36 games out of first place, and it declined to tender a contract to Rodriguez after declining to give him an extended look during an especially pointless September.
A player’s most recent team knows more about the given player than any other team would be privy to, presumably, but the handling of Rodriguez is confusing. A player with such limited major league exposure requires only the league minimum salary if rostered, and Texas surrendered control of the pitcher through as long as 2023. A team signing Rodriguez would still be able to option him to the minors this season, since only two of his three options have been used since first being added to Texas’ 40-man roster in 2017.
Rodriguez has struck out batters at a far greater rate since returning from his 2015 Tommy John surgery without hurting his ability to suppress walks and home runs. He has the mid-90s heat and low-80s slider that can comfortably project into a stable middle reliever, and the best of those work the 7th and 8th innings of tomorrow. He has shown signs of being able to corral MLB hitters in limited trials with little high minors experience, and he is ready for an extended look in middle relief.