After year of tumult, Rodriguez's MLB dream becoming a reality with Blue Jays

DUNEDIN, Fla. – Vicyohandri Odelin spent nearly his entire 21-season career with Ganaderos de Camaguey of the Cuban National Series and a young Yariel Rodriguez idolized the ace right-hander. A talented righty in his own right, he eventually grew up to pitch for his hometown team, too, even spending parts of three seasons on the same staff as his hero at the beginning of a promising career. Before long, Rodriguez represented his country internationally, just like Odelin, and later landed a pro gig in Japan.

Still, Rodriguez always dreamed of playing Major League Baseball and during his two seasons with the Chunichi Dragons, he began to realize his stuff was good enough for him to do just that. Of course, signing with a big-league team isn’t that simple for a Cuban player, but by the time he rejoined the national team for the 2023 World Baseball Classic, he’d made up his mind – he was going to chase the dream.

“This is what I wanted all along,” Rodriguez, speaking through interpreter Hector Lebron, says of the early days of his first spring training with the Toronto Blue Jays. “When I was playing for the Dragons in Japan, which for me is the second-best league in the world, I saw my results and they were pretty good. That was the turning point. I said, you know what, I want to play in the best league and I’m here.”

Getting here, to the Player Development Complex in Dunedin Fla. after signing a five-year contract that guarantees $32 million, demonstrates how badly he wanted to reach this goal, as coming to North America required 10 months of courage, conviction and sacrifice.

The World Baseball Classic last spring, when Cuba advanced to the semifinals before getting crushed 14-2 by the United States, offered him an opportunity. Following the loss to the Americans in Miami, he returned to the island with his teammates and from there was to head to Japan to rejoin the Dragons.

His late-March itinerary included a stopover in Mexico. There, he changed routes, skipping out on his original connection and instead boarding another flight that took him to the Dominican Republic, fighting through a wave of emotions as he left the life he’d known.

“It was a little bit scary, I was a little nervous, a little bit of doubt over if I wanted to go to Japan or stay,” he says. “But I made the decision and right now I’m very happy that I really made that decision.”

Reaching the Dominican was only a first step, however. The Dragons immediately put him on a restricted list, which MLB honours, making him ineligible to sign with a big-league team. His contract ran through the 2024 season, leaving him potentially in extended limbo.

“I thought about sitting down with the team, trying to get some negotiation or some kind of deal so I would have been able to pitch last year in the big-leagues,” he says. “Obviously it didn't happen.”

An extended standoff ensued and Rodriguez was essentially on his own as the process played out. He’d left his family, including wife Gabriela and son Harold Yariel, now five, behind. While he had a friend who helped take care of him and places to work out, the realities of being untethered from his previous world “was very hard.”

“It's a big sacrifice when you leave your family behind, especially your kid. I was pretty much alone,” he says. “When you don't have your family, you don't have that support you really need. The sacrifice is huge. But I understood back then the challenges. I knew I had to go through it. It’s the way it is.”

By fall, the stalemate began to ease. A deal was reached with Chunichi, which granted him his release in early October. About a month later, MLB declared him a free agent, which opened the bidding for his services. He pitched in a handful of showcases, which helped bolster the market for him. The dream was on his way to becoming reality.

The Blue Jays had looks at Rodriguez dating back to 2017, when he was part of the Cuban team to play series against Canadian-American Association clubs, but it wasn’t until he joined the Dragons in 2020 that their interest picked up. They liked his repertoire and saw it on full display during a June 1, 2021 outing for Cuba against Canada in the Olympic qualifying tournament.

Veteran Carlos Viera started that game but allowed three runs and couldn’t escape the first inning. Rodriguez took over and threw the next 6.1 frames, allowing two runs on four hits and four walks with 11 strikeouts in what finished as a 6-5 Canadian win that knocked out the Cubans, reinforcing to the Blue Jays his starter potential.

Back with Chunichi afterwards, Rodriguez posted a 2.95 ERA in 94.2 innings across 19 games, mostly starts, striking out 101 batters in a contact-oriented league. In 2022, he got squeezed out of the Dragons rotation but excelled in the bullpen, posting a 1.15 ERA in 54.2 innings over 56 games with 60 strikeouts and just 18 walks as the setup man for fellow Cuban Raidel Martinez, who may be next winter’s most coveted free-agent reliever -- if he gets to North America.

The Blue Jays quietly did background work on Rodriguez, learning about his work habits, the type of his teammate he was and, believing in his starter potential and seeking pitching depth, made him a winter target. They reached agreement on a contract in mid-January but couldn’t finalize it until Feb. 9, while visa issues were sorted out.

“I really liked their approach,” says Rodriguez. “They really wanted me to become a Blue Jay for all this time. That's what was attractive to me.”

How the soon-to-be 27-year-old, his birthday is March 10, fits the roster this season is somewhat of a moving target.

Reflective of how unusual his past couple of years have been, Rodriguez’s contract allows the Blue Jays to option him to the minor-leagues this season, which is atypical for veteran Cuban and Japanese players who come over (he still will be a free agent once his deal expires even without reaching six years of service time).

Rodriguez puts himself at 75 per cent right now and as long as Alek Manoah doesn’t falter and everyone stays healthy, the Blue Jays won’t need an extra starter, pointing to him perhaps opening the year at triple-A Buffalo, or filling some sort of hybrid role in the bullpen, exact usage TBD.

“He's got a lot of weapons,” says pitching coach Pete Walker. “He's got just about every pitch in the in the book, from different angles. He's got the slight hesitation in the delivery. There are certainly some things there that are interesting. And we'll just have to kind of fine tune a little bit and find out what will really work the best at the major-league level.”

Transitioning back to a starter’s workload is something “I'm going to take as a challenge – and I love challenges,” says Rodriguez, who further builds out a rotation depth the Blue Jays sorely lacked a year ago. Further, he, Bowden Francis, Mitch White and top prospect Ricky Tiedemann, among others, will also be trying to set themselves up for a looming rotation vacancy next year when Yusei Kikuchi is eligible for free agency.

“I always loved being a starter,” says Rodriguez. “That's who I am. I don't think I will miss anything about relieving. I had to do it in Japan because in the rotation, there were a lot of veteran guys in front of me. But I won't miss anything about relieving. The adrenaline of being a starter, to take the mound in the first inning is huge and I love that.”

The other thing he loves is the opportunity before him. He’s still apart from Gabriela and Harold Yariel, but they reached the Dominican about two months ago and the paperwork needed for them to join him is just beginning. After the season, they’ll need to find a permanent home and Rodriguez is thinking about settling in Miami. With the Cuban national team, he pitched in Quebec City but has never been to Toronto and knows little about the city.

But those are matters for down the road.

“For right now,” he says smiling, “just baseball.”

Given what he’s gone through the past year, that’s understandable. Rodriguez wanted to pitch in the majors and now he’s starting to fulfil a childhood dream.