Julio Rodríguez and the manifestation of "makeup"

On the work before the metrics.

Julio Rodríguez always planned to be a star. He didn’t assume it would happen—but he knew the work he put in would land him there, and he wanted to be prepared.

That’s why, before he even played a professional game in the United States, he wanted to learn the language we spoke, to have a fully developed skill-set for stardom. And so he did.

One of the things I’m most proud of from my time at the Mariners—not because it was hard, just because it’ll be fun trivia to tell my future kids—is that I was the one asking the questions in Julio Rodríguez’s first-ever interview fully in English.

He didn’t have to—no player does. It’s not a huge deal, I did interviews on the same trip through an interpreter and it was just fine.

But learning English at that age, with so much going on in life, was just something he wanted to do because he thought would be useful. So he did.

When the interview was over, I floated away. This kid, 17 years old, simultaneously a boyish teenager and exactly what a Major Leaguer looks like, was different.

Of course, it helps to get lines like this.

Before I did the gig professionally, I was a Mariners fan. Like, that was at the core of doing the job and being decent at it—being a Mariners fanboy with enough social and digital chops to be dangerous.

I could go on and on about how I knew then Julio could be The Dude. You could sense it. How I thought he could be an MVP-type and told buddies I worked with back in Seattle.

There’s nothing I can write though that’s going to effectively convey that feeling. Maybe, like, Vonnegut could do it justice.

That’d be hilarious, Kurt writing up the scene of me and a videographer interviewing a 17-year-old future superstar on metal bleachers at a mostly-empty Arizona complex so we could share a video on social media. Like some bizarro modern day Field of Dreams.

Anyway, that’s enough of an attempt.

I wrote this post because I’ve been thinking about it for a while, honestly for as long as the blog has existed.

In every sport, you hear so much about a player’s “makeup.” And it’s a dangerous game, with certain personality traits applied to certain demographics and unreliable narrators painting haphazardly with a brush dunked in confirmation bias.

It is rare that you can see, objectively and undeniably, that makeup show up in or on the field of play. But it does happen.

That is Julio Rodríguez and his elite defense at one of the game’s premium positions.

I want to bring your attention to a few different blurbs.

From Top 38 Prospects: Seattle Mariners, published by FanGraphs on May 17, 2021.

He also showed up for 2021 spring training having lost a bunch of weight and running a full grade better than he did in 2019 and ’20; he’s once again an average runner from home to first.

Average? Oh that’s so good to hear.

From 2021 Seattle Mariners Midseason Top 30 Prospects Update in Baseball Prospectus, published July 29, 2021:

The only knock on Rodriguez is his occasional lack of focus on defense results in avoidable mistakes, but he has the physical tools to be at least an average defender.

At least average, they say? Great.

From Seattle Mariners Top Prospects, published by Baseball Prospectus on January 26, 2022.

Defensively, he’ll still be stretched if asked to man center field, but should be average or a tick above in a corner.

Stretched if asked to man center.

This is not a dunk. People love to dunk. I do, too. But we as a society are getting a little too aggressive with what we’re calling a dunk.

The people who write the prospect profiles above are talented evaluators. They know prospects a hell of a lot better than I do. They were wrong here, yes. It’s not important, but it is true.

And though it is true, they were wrong because the situation materially changed. Julio changed it.

Shannon Drayer was the first to legitimately suggest Julio Rodríguez could be the organization’s center fielder of the future, that it even was already in the works.

That was in NOVEMBER OF 2021. Only four months before he’d begin his Rookie of the Year campaign—in center field.

In those four months, probably one or two prior, a lot of work. Substack’s being a pain and not letting me embed but if you followed Julio on Instagram, it was Story after Story. Constantly in the gym. A whole lot of speed-work.

We saw it in the regular season. Ichiro saw it even before that.

“During his first spring training, I had the opportunity to run around with him, play catch and do all those things with him,” Ichiro said through interpreter Allen Turner on Wednesday afternoon at T-Mobile Park. “I realized he’s faster than he looks. He’s doesn’t look as fast as he really is. He’s really fast. He’s under control. He’s even-keel. So I knew he could play center. I thought that he was destined to be a center fielder.”

Since his Major League debut, Julio Rodríguez is the seventh-best center fielder in the game by Outs Above Average. Since the beginning of last year, he’s fourth-best.

This year? Best defensive center fielder in the game.

The metrics are nice. The plays—the plays are nicer. The emotions they elicit, the romance of it all.

You can’t beat it.

Defense wins you games. It makes you a more complete player. At a premium position like center? It tilts the field for the gloves around him and the pitching staff he plays behind.

It’s funny though, defense is often viewed as the dorkiest of all the stats. It’s the one people still tend to most overlook.

In the case of Julio, though, it comes from the most old-school trait there is. Makeup. Intangibles. Character.

Julio wanted to get faster. He wanted to be a great center fielder. So he just…did it.

It’s why I tend not to worry too much about Julio.

The power bat may not be where he or we want it to be quite yet. But it’ll come.

Until then, he’s still a hell of a ball player to watch.