A New Baseball Star is Born: How Julio Rodriguez from the Dominican Republic became Seattle Mariners 470-million-dollar Man.
Julio Rodriguez was barely 18, playing baseball in the United States for the first time, when he made his biggest impression on a Seattle Mariners franchise that now adores him.
It wasn’t how he hit or how he fielded or how he ran — it was how he watched.
With less than five weeks left in his rookie season, Rodriguez, now 21, is the best player on a team poised to snap a historic postseason drought, a favorite for the American League Rookie of the Year Award and, as of Friday, owner of a long-term deal that will pay him anywhere between $210 million and $470 million over the life of his career, an unprecedented — and highly complex — contract for someone with less than a full year of major league service time.
The Mariners’ principal decision-makers were initially captivated by Rodriguez’s ceiling, then awed by how he changed his body to become a dynamic center fielder. They marveled at how he handled torturous early struggles to somehow become an All-Star at midseason and were drawn by how his rise has helped propel the group that surrounds him. But they were also moved by his infectious joy and unwavering authenticity.
They saw it in how his eyes lit up when his name was listed among potential fill-ins at a major league spring training game for the first time and how he went around the room high-fiving everyone on the list with him. In how he traveled to West Virginia to boisterously cheer for teammates at the South Atlantic League All-Star Game, even though an injury had kept him from participating. In how he became a beloved figure within a big league clubhouse full of accomplished veterans who would typically scoff at a young player who promotes himself so aggressively.
“As good a player as he is and as fun as he is to watch, he’s so much more than that,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. “He’s just such a genuine human being.”
Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
Seattle – August 31, 2022
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Photo credit: ESPN, USBets, Yahoo Sports
The career of Julio Rodriguez is is one of these stories every Dominican boy dreams about.
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