The Inevitability of Julio Rodriguez
It’s now almost 10-12 hours since the news broke that Julio Rodriguez has officially made the opening day roster, but my power’s been out all day thanks to these storms. So if we can’t be timely, let’s take a step back and talk about any larger repercussions.
Is this (and the opening day starts for some other top prospects) a sign that the new CBA has changed the math on service time manipulation, even at the margin? That’s an interesting question, but I think Julio’s promotion won’t really shed any light on it. What I mean by that is Julio’s play and the M’s injury situation made Julio’s path to the roster much easier. Kris Bryant had a legitimate, veteran major leaguer at his position back in 2015. Was it still a clear-cut case of service time manipulation? Absolutely, but even that’s not the case here, unless you call NRI Billy Hamilton the MLB vet that would enable the M’s to mess with Julio.
Beyond the roster, which is thin, but very solid, there are other factors that helped Julio’s cause (really, M’s fans’ cause). First is the lingering damage from Kevin Mather’s Bellevue remarks, and the salt they poured into the open wound of Jarred Kelenic’s relationship with the front office. Second, Kelenic’s struggles may have helped the team realized there’s no real magic about starting a prospect’s season at a lower level that makes the transition to the big leagues easier. Confidence is important, but you don’t fill up your confidence bank account by swatting some AAA home runs, especially not these days, when AAA-West’s run environment is essentially broken. The M’s may also see Julio’s arrival (and the sudden emergence of Matt Brash) as a way to take some of the pressure off of Kelenic. Kelenic was the big story for much of last year, and while he’s still an important player for the M’s chances, a heck of a lot of interview requests will shift over to the effortlessly charismatic Rodriguez.
But most of all, everything we’ve seen from Rodriguez underscores just how special a talent he is. Does that mean he’s an MVP candidate this year? Well, that’s probably a bit much, but Rodriguez has been on some very big stages and has hit well at essentially every level. The M’s upped the degree of difficulty on him by asking him to play a lot more CF this spring, but after his first or second game there, the game was over. He wasn’t splitting time with Kelenic anymore, and I’ll be shocked if the M’s give Kelenic more than a game or two in CF. He just looked natural out there, and head and shoulders above his in-house rivals. Here, too, the way things worked out may help Kelenic as much as they help Julio.
All of this has injected some optimism and excitement to a fanbase that spent last spring talking about Mather and service time manipulation, and the last few weeks talking about the team’s failure to land another free agent. The team is worse on paper than many of their wild card rivals, but the promotion of Julio and the utterly ridiculous Matt Brash, has helped shift the conversation from the upgrades on, say, Minnesota or Anaheim, and what this M’s team could do if things break right. Sure, some of that’s just the Spring talking, but a lot of it has to do with how amazing Julio looks. Julio essentially took this decision out of the M’s hands.
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Julio’s defense in center this spring has easily been the biggest surprise, and though I still wish they had landed another option, I feel a lot better about the outfield defense now than I did before spring started.
Seattle has a respectable looking offense in place. Ironically, the bullpen–the strength of the team last season–looks vulnerable.
It would be really great for Seattle baseball if Rodriguez works out as well as we hope. Buy in my 60 some years of watching baseball I’ve seen an awful lot of can’t miss prospects not make it. Just look at how Kelenic went from the presumed savior of the franchise to “let’s hope he’s not as bad this year”.