Is Julio Rodríguez the Future of Baseball? He Has No Doubt.

PEORIA, Ariz. — Problem Julio Rodríguez at your personal danger. Throughout a spring coaching exercise right here over two weeks in the past, Jerry Dipoto, the Seattle Mariners president of baseball operations, did simply that with the staff’s 21-year-old outfield prospect.

Sitting on the bench, Rodríguez, the third-ranked prospect within the sport, turned to Dipoto and instructed him how a lot he was pushed by what folks stated he couldn’t do. So Rodríguez, primarily a nook outfielder within the minor leagues, requested his boss if he thought Rodríguez might play middle. Dipoto, a former main league pitcher, stated sure and Rodríguez, smiling, reassured him that he had already labored arduous to take action.

Then Dipoto needled Rodríguez. “Are you aware what I don’t assume you are able to do? I don’t assume you are able to do 30/30 or win a triple crown,” he stated referring to 2 distinctive feats — hitting 30 dwelling runs and stealing 30 bases in a season, and main a league in batting common, dwelling runs and runs batted in.

“I meant it jokingly simply to see the place he would go,” Dipoto later recalled. “And he stated, ‘You don’t assume so?’ I stated, ‘No, I don’t.’ Then he took again his bat and stated, ‘It’s on.’ Since then, each time he’s on first base, he runs.”

When the Mariners start their 2022 season on Friday in opposition to the Minnesota Twins — a day later than anticipated due to rain in Minneapolis — Rodríguez is anticipated to be in middle subject, the fruits of a lifelong dream for him and his mother and father, who have been slated to fly in from their native Dominican Republic to look at their son’s Main League Baseball debut.

It’ll additionally function one other reminder that Rodríguez — along with his huge goals and an enormous smile, a self-assuredness that belies his years, an inherent ability for English and a physique harking back to a soccer participant — can obtain lots when he units his thoughts to it. This low season, Rodríguez pushed himself to enhance a talent that beforehand lagged behind his others — his velocity — so he might deal with middle subject. And now, Rodríguez, who’s listed at 6-foot-3 and 228 kilos, is near an elite-level runner in baseball, in keeping with Dipoto.

“He’s a five-tool participant,” Dipoto stated, “who has by some means managed to make all of his instruments higher.”

An enormous problem now awaits Rodríguez: fulfilling the hopeful promise of a brand new Mariners period. After years of rebuilding, Seattle received a shocking 90 video games final season and was in competition for a playoff spot till the ultimate day of the common season. Rodríguez, although, performed no half, producing a stellar 2021 through which he hit .347 with 13 dwelling runs over two minor league ranges and helped information the Dominican baseball staff to a bronze medal on the Tokyo Video games.

Ever since Rodríguez was 17, the yr after he signed with the Mariners for $1.75 million, he has recognized in regards to the franchise’s dismal October historical past. In 2001, the Mariners tied a significant league document by profitable 116 video games however flamed out within the second spherical of the postseason. They haven’t been again since, the longest energetic playoff drought in main North American skilled males’s sports activities. They’re the one energetic staff that has not reached the World Sequence.

When Rodríguez and his father flew to Seattle final fall so he might obtain a minor-league award from the Mariners earlier than a recreation at T-Cell Park, Rodríguez defined the franchise’s ignominious previous.

“He stated, ‘Dad, look, I wish to be a part of the staff that breaks this document,’” his father, 53, who can be named Julio Rodríguez, stated in a cellphone interview in Spanish. “‘We wish to change Seattle’s historical past.’”

This, after all, has fueled the youthful Rodríguez. His father at all times dreamed of turning into an expert baseball participant however couldn’t, so he handed that need onto his son. He put a plastic bat in his son’s palms at beginning, and, by the point his son was strolling, the elder Rodríguez was tossing him balls to hit within the yard after work. By 12, he was catching bullpens and hitting greater velocity pitching.

So, like many Dominican boys, the youthful Rodríguez ended up at a baseball academy in his teenagers. However his mother and father didn’t enable it till they discovered a method for his or her son to additionally full his secondary college research, a much less frequent achievement amongst younger Dominican gamers who give attention to baseball to financially help their households. Rodríguez’s mother and father understood the significance of an schooling — his father is an agricultural engineer and his mom, Yasmin Reyes, is an odontologist.

“My mother and father at all times stated, even for those who’re good at baseball, it’s unsure,” the youthful Rodríguez stated. “Something can occur on the sector. So my mother and father at all times thought that if one thing did, I’d have a future off it.”

From a younger age, Rodríguez stated he needed to study English as a result of it sounded cool. He listened to his mom’s English-for-beginners CDs. Even whereas he was away at a baseball academy, his mother and father nonetheless despatched him to English courses on Saturdays. To assist grasp colloquialisms, Rodríguez listened to Drake, following together with the rapper’s lyrics on his cellphone. And when he was round fellow minor leaguers from the USA, he enlisted their assist.

“My English was horrible on the time,” he stated. “So me not being afraid of messing up, and telling all people round me, ‘Yo, for those who hear me say one thing that sounds off or it’s simply not so good, inform me.’ I used to be fortunate sufficient that not all people round me beginning me and laughing. They simply opened the door.”

Rodríguez is so insistent on training that, even in a latest interview with one other native Spanish speaker for this text, he typically answered in English, seamlessly slipping between each languages. His adeptness in English stood in distinction to Kevin Mather, the previous Mariners president who resigned final yr after making controversial remarks about roster manipulation and the English talents of the Japanese participant Hisashi Iwakuma and Rodríguez.

“When he stated that, it got here by way of one ear and out the opposite,” Rodríguez stated, mockingly, in English. “It wasn’t actually one thing that bothered me. I didn’t know the man.”

On the sector, Rodriguez is a part of an inflow of elite younger expertise to the majors. The Detroit Tigers and the Kansas Metropolis Royals every promoted their high prospects for opening day — first baseman Spencer Torkelson and shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. — after transient stints in Class AAA and robust spring coaching showings.

Every might be a results of a brand new incentive within the labor settlement between M.L.B. and the gamers’ union: To chop down on the service-time manipulation Mather as soon as described, groups can earn an additional draft choose after the primary spherical if a high prospect is within the main leagues his whole rookie yr and finishes in both the highest three in Rookie of the Yr voting or the highest 5 within the Most Precious Participant or Cy Younger Award voting in any season earlier than he reaches wage arbitration.

However Rodríguez units himself other than different high prospects, these round him say, along with his magnetic character. In a sport slowly shedding its repute of traditionalism and muted individualism, Rodríguez shines. He laughs. He smiles. He doesn’t conceal his feelings on the sector. His batting observe bat is plastered with a nickname: JROD. He has his personal brand.

“I respect those who take this so critical,” Rodríguez stated about baseball. “I undoubtedly assume it’s critical. I work actually arduous to maintain getting higher and all that, however on the finish of the day, you’ve acquired to take pleasure in this.”

Rodríguez isn’t shy about eager to be an attraction. Rising up, he idolized the previous Mariners star Alex Rodriguez. Julio Rodríguez admired that every time A-Rod was batting, everybody stopped to look at. Throughout an interview years in the past, Rodríguez stated the interviewer talked about a nickname that performed off his idol’s — J-Rod Present — and it caught.

“Baseball wants Julios,” Dipoto stated. “To have somebody with that sort of expertise who isn’t afraid to exit and compete on the largest stage — who invitations the eye and doesn’t wilt when it comes — it’s an superior mixture.”

The completion of the Mariners’ rise rests not solely on the shoulders of Rodríguez, however on Seattle’s different promising younger gamers. They embrace shortstop J.P. Crawford, outfielder Kyle Lewis (the 2020 American League Rookie of the Yr, who has been slowed by knee accidents), pitchers Matt Brash and Logan Gilbert, catcher Cal Raleigh and outfielder Jarred Kelenic (the previous Mets high prospect who sputtered in his rookie season final yr).

“For all these guys and all of the expertise that they’ve, Julio does deliver with him a glow and the gamers all really feel it,” Dipoto stated, including later, “I can’t wait to see what the longer term holds for him.”

With an energetic winter, the Mariners supplemented one of many youngest M.L.B. rosters by signing or buying and selling for the next former All-Stars: pitcher Robbie Ray (the 2021 A.L. Cy Younger Award winner), outfielder Jesse Winker, and infielders Adam Frazier and Eugenio Suárez. Kelenic, 22, stated everybody shared the identical aim: reaching the playoffs.

Rodríguez, although, takes it a number of steps additional along with his aspirations for the staff — and himself.

Does he assume he may be an All-Star? Does he assume he may be an on a regular basis middle fielder? Does he assume he can smash 500 dwelling runs earlier than the top of his profession? How about serving to the Mariners snap their playoff drought? Or profitable Seattle’s first World Sequence? And what about that playful 30-30 season problem from Dipoto?

Rodríguez’s reply to every query was precisely the identical: “I’ve little doubt in my thoughts.”