Rodriguez Reps the Home Team

CORAL GABLES, Fla. – For most people around the world, the year 2020 has been one to forget. But for Eddy Rodriguez, 2020 has been unforgettable.

A former standout catcher at the University of Miami, Rodriguez is back in his hometown as the Miami Marlins’ catching coach and he is humbled to get the chance to coach at baseball’s highest level.

“First of all, the opportunity to be a Major League coach anywhere is special,” Rodriguez said. “There’s so few of us and the opportunity doesn’t really come around very often. The fact that a Major League organization thought enough of me to give me an opportunity to coach the highest level in our sport definitely has been an honor.”

Adding to the excitement of his MLB coaching debut, Rodriguez and the Marlins have earned a spot in the postseason for just the third time in franchise history. While the Marlins may have surprised many around baseball with their surge from last in the NL East a year ago to a playoff team in 2020, Rodriguez is not surprised to see the team have so much success.

“Going into the regular season spring training, pretending we have 162 games, we were predicted to not really do any damage within our division, within baseball as a whole, within the National League, any of that,” Rodriguez said. “We were picked to not do any damage and all of us that were on the inside we were like, ‘Just hold your horses. Don’t take and cash that check just yet,’ Because we knew what we had internally, we knew what is here and we know what’s on the way. Did we arrive a little earlier? Did the 60 games play to our advantage? Well, we could argue it did or didn’t, but we could argue for about 25 of those games we were without 18 players and that includes three-fifths of our starting rotation out, that is without our starting shortstop, without our starting catcher. We could go here and there and name a bunch of things that didn’t go in our direction, but it has been amazing.”

Rodriguez’s path to coaching in the Majors is a unique one. A 20^th round selection of the Cincinnati Reds in 2006, Rodriguez had a 12-year career playing professional baseball that included a brief stint in the big leagues with the Padres in 2012.

But he was out of baseball in 2018 before the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim hired him in 2019 as their catching coordinator. A year later, his hometown Marlins called about a position on their big league coaching staff and Rodriguez jumped at the chance.

“When this opportunity presented itself, I can’t explain the happiness that came over me,” Rodriguez said. “Growing up in Sweetwater and just idolizing the Marlins and loving the team, watching the team go through their playoff stretches, watching the team and knowing all the names of all the players that were there when I was a kid and then having the opportunity to go to the University of Miami and having the chance to be kind of in the same circles as guys like Pudge [Rodriguez] and those guys that would come to The U and practice, it’s unreal. You can’t script it. It’s been a blessing, for sure.”

For a long time, Rodriguez had no idea he would want to coach. He was so focused on his playing career that the thought of what to do after baseball rarely crossed his mind. But things changed for him in 2014, just two years after he homered in his first MLB at-bat, as he was released and left not knowing where to turn. That is when a fellow Miami baseball alumnus helped steer him on a new path.

“I got let go after a month of the season with Tampa Bay and Laz Gutierrez goes, ‘Are you ready to coach?’ And I remember I said, ‘Laz, I don’t know.’ He told me to call him and let him know,” Rodriguez said. “I called him back and said, ‘Look, I’m ready, I’m done playing.’ So Laz sets me up with an interview to be the fourth coach with the Boston Red Sox in the Gulf Coast League and it was kind of crazy because that year I got to coach under a very highly-credited scout in Tom Kotchman, who’s been around for it feels like 1,000 years. He was instrumental in the first step of teaching me how to care about players.”

While working under Kotchman in the Boston organization, Rodriguez got the initial desire to pursue coaching as a career. But that was put on hold in 2015 when the New York Yankees called to offer him a minor league contract. His return as a player lasted three years, but it was in those three seasons where he solidified his post-playing career path.

“It was kind of crazy because I ended up going back to playing in 2015, 2016 and 2017. That’s why I think everything is kind of meant to be,” Rodriguez said. “I always thought that it was kind of nonsense when people said, ‘Hey, everything happens for a reason.’ But the older I’ve gotten, the more I hear myself using that phrase, ‘Hey, man, everything happens for a reason.’ because I went back to playing and it wasn’t because I wondered [if I could still play]. It was just the New York Yankees came calling and it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

“Then I met Josh Paul, who is now the bench coach with the Tigers, and at that time he was a catching coordinator with the Yankees. Josh is the person that I would tell you, not necessarily inspired me to coach, but inspired me to learn how to coach myself,” Rodriguez added. “That’s what I think brought that internal want to be like, ‘I feel like I could pass this on.’ Josh made me question myself and wonder internally like, ‘How do you do what you do?’ And then I would say that having an opportunity to work with Gary Sanchez in 2015 and 2016, and then having Kyle Higashioka and having an opportunity to work with the Major League pitchers that we had with New York in Triple-A in Luis Severino, Luis Cessa, Jordan Montgomery, Chad Green, the list goes on of all these guys that are now elite Major Leaguers, [that is] when I realized that I have an ability to get to these kids. I have an ability that if I deliver the correct message in the correct way that I could potentially help these guys realize their dreams. That was a huge one for me there that I was like, ‘This is something I want to do.’”

Looking back at his time as a Hurricane, Rodriguez remembers his three years at The U fondly. He was a member of two teams that went to the College World Series and played a key role in Miami’s success in his tenure in Coral Gables. But what stands out most for Rodriguez is what he learned at Miami that has helped him succeed every day since he left.

“I talk with Jon Jay about this all the time. We have a group chat with Jon Jay, Andrew Lane, Yonder Alonso, Danny Valencia, Jemile Weeks, Blake Tekotte, Dennis Raben and what we always talk about is like what we learned at Miami,” Rodriguez said. “Yeah, we had a group of very talented players, but more than that, we learned that it was a mindset. We came to the ballpark to win. There was never a time that I put on a Miami uniform, that I stepped on the field and I was like ‘Oh, there’s a chance we might lose today.’ That was instilled by the guys before me. That was culturally what we believed that just because we got to wear the green and orange meant that we were going to win that game and we were supposed to win that game and we believed that across all the years and I think it elevated our play. I think we became better players.

“And then in addition to that mindset, you had somebody like Gino [DiMare] who would make practice way more difficult than any game we ever played,” Rodriguez continued. “You knew you were mentally challenged and internally challenged in every practice. No matter how good you were, our practices were more mentally challenging than any game you would play against any team, so by the time we got to the games, we felt like we had already encountered these tough scenarios in a practice concept.”

DiMare, who was an assistant coach on head coach Jim Morris’ staff during Rodriguez’s career at Miami, is not surprised to see the former standout passing along his knowledge at the highest level.

“Eddy’s strength was always defense and he was one of the better pure defensive catchers, receivers, just all-around catchers that we ever had,” DiMare said. “At some point in his career along the way, he got very into the analytics of the game and especially on the catching side of it. Now with where the game has gone and how much it has evolved, he’s done a very good job of keeping up with the game like that. It’s not surprising that he ended up where he’s at, which is great. He’s a hometown guy, he loves Miami and being able to coach here in front of his family I’m sure is a dream for him and his family, as well. I’m very happy for him and, of course, the team’s done great which is great for everybody.”

While Morris and DiMare made their mark on Rodriguez, pitching coach J.D. Arteaga and then-catching coach Joe Mercadante also made a significant impact on his life and career. All four coaches helped mold Rodriguez’s coaching style.

“I’ve learned to take a lot of the different things that all these coaches have brought to me,” Rodriguez said. “To this day when Joe and I speak, it’s like brothers. It’s ‘I love you’ and ‘I love you’ when we hang up the phone. That’s the type of relationship we have. These guys impacted our lives. Gino and I stay in consistent contact. Coach Morris is constantly reaching out, whether it’s a birthday text or his tweets or anything like that. And J.D. changed my career. In 2005, he changed my career in a conversation that he had with me. So the impact of these guys was huge. And then as I went through professional baseball — in 12 years of professional baseball I was also very fortunate to have some people that lent themselves to give me advice and to help me become a better player, which I have been able to try to refocus and try to become a better coach from it.”

That conversation Rodriguez alluded to is a moment both he and Arteaga have never forgotten.

As a sophomore in 2005, Rodriguez earned the starting job at catcher, but a back spasm knocked him out of the lineup for a few weeks. In his absence, heralded freshman Alex Garabedian had a lot of success offensively and the Hurricanes were winning, so when Rodriguez was healthy, he returned to competition at catcher.

“When I came back, I was playing but I got off to a bad start. I was hitting like .035 and all of a sudden I’m benched for back-to-back games and that hadn’t happened yet,” Rodriguez said. “I’m here kind of mopey and J.D. pulls me aside and pretty much what he told me was, ‘Hey, we want you to be the guy behind the plate. We want you back there. You’re the guy that we want back there, but just understand we’re winning.’ We were top-five in the country at the time. It was like, ‘We are still winning without you, so it’s either you change your attitude and you change your approach about this, stop moping around, get your act together and the next time you get your opportunity you go and do your job.’ I was fortunate because we went into Wake Forest the weekend after and I think the first game I went like 3-for-4 and then I went something like 4-for-4 and then I didn’t come out of the lineup for two years.”

The way Arteaga tells it, Rodriguez might have built up some doubt in the back of his mind a year before the catcher and pitching coach had their pivotal conversation in the outfield at FIU.

“I specifically remember Eddy’s freshman year, he was playing behind Erick San Pedro,” Arteaga said. ‘He played sparingly behind Erick, who was a great catcher that was a second-round pick for the Expos. So Eddy didn’t play much that year and it was a year of learning and understanding the system. And I remember Erick giving him a hard time saying, ‘Well, next year you’re not going to play either because Garabedian is coming and he’s the best thing since sliced bread’ and things like that. He was just giving him a hard time and just kind of messing with the freshmen a little bit.

“Then the next year comes around and normally the non-starting catcher is the guy that long tosses and warms up the pitcher in the bullpen. Early in the season, the guys are kind of 50/50 as far as playing time behind the plate and that day Alex was getting the start. I noticed that Eddy was down and he didn’t get off to a great start as a sophomore. He was starting to believe all the things that Erick was saying. It was all kidding and good humor, but he’s starting to believe it a little bit and you could see him starting to quit and just giving the job away really, even though this guy was a year younger and he figured he was not going to play anymore.”

Knowing that one of his players needed some advice, Arteaga met with Rodriguez in the outfield before that game at FIU and the rest is history.

“I remember having a serious heart-to-heart with him in the outfield at FIU on a weekday game and he kind of changed after that,” Arteaga said. “He bought into the fact of ‘I’m going to fight for my job’ and he ended up winning the job and Alex Garabedian is the one that ended up transferring out. I think that was a big turning point for him and at the time he understood that you’ve got to fight for things in life and you’ve got to earn it and he did that. He could have easily just hung it up and said that I’m done, but he didn’t. He didn’t and I think it’s made him a better player, better coach, better everything because of it.”

“J.D. changed my life that day because I could have very easily folded my cards,” Rodriguez said. “I could’ve just been another story of a guy that had some talent that never lived up to it. And because of J.D. that one day being the guy to hurt me — he hurt me, he hit me hard, but he hit me in between the eyes and he told me the truth. That right there is one of those potential turning moments in my life — forget college baseball or baseball — in my life, because I’ve been very fortunate to make baseball the way that I provide for my family.”

Rodriguez carries that mentality with him today and that is part of what made him attractive to the Yankees when they were looking to add a veteran presence in their minor league system in 2015. That same mindset helped him land his current role as the Marlins’ catching coach.

“I think it’s the mindset concept, even here with the Marlins. A lot of us new coaches here are former guys that were with the Yankee organization at some point,” Rodriguez said. “It’s funny because nobody wants to lose, but as soon as we came through here it was like, ‘We’re winning today and we’re going to win tomorrow and then we’ll deal with the next day after that.’ The mindset is different and when I think when you change that and you expect to win, I think that the players start buying in, especially when they do win a couple of games. In our business, the season is so long that the players just have to stick to the routine, stick to their programs, stick to what they’re doing every day and go out there and compete and internally believe like, ‘Hey, we’ve got a shot in this game.’ You have to have the right mindset to take care of that game and then go on to the next one.”

The Marlins are a prime example of the refuse to quit mentality that Rodriguez has lived by for 15 years. In his first season with the club, the team has overcome major obstacles and continued to fight and claw toward the postseason despite everyone in baseball doubting them.

“What I think this year has done is it’s really tested how a team is built and the culture and the mentality within a team,” Rodriguez said. “I think that this is what this year has done. That’s why I think that this team is so exciting. Yes, we have flame-throwing 23-year-olds that are making their name in the Major Leagues for the first time. We have super prospects, guys that are coming up, we have veteran guys that are stepping up and being incredible leaders. We have all those things, but I think what’s been the most inspirational is that these guys have been able to rise above everything. For us, it hasn’t only been just a different season. For us, we were stricken with 18 COVID cases two days into the season and the fact that these guys were still able to go, ‘Okay, sounds good. Let’s just keep going.’”

Keep going is exactly what they did, as the Marlins finished the season second in the NL East with a 32-29 record, earning the sixth seed in the National League playoffs. But Rodriguez said the team is not satisfied with just making it to the postseason. They have bigger goals in mind.

“At the beginning, I started contemplating the fact of if you do get into the playoffs or if you do win a World Series in a year like this, is it going to lose any merit? And in the beginning, I was definitely on the side of ‘yes, I think it’s going to be a little bit different,’” Rodriguez said. “But now, after you’ve gone through the whole year of hotels and the bus protocols and the airplane protocols and getting to the field and having to test, after you go through all those things and the same things that other teams are going through, I think that this is not any less or any more than any other year. It’s just a different year, and it’s survival of the fittest. As of right now, we’re one of the 16 teams in the dance and I don’t think we expect to be out of the dance anytime soon.”

No matter what happens in the 2020 playoffs, Rodriguez’s Canes baseball family is proud of him and excited for what is yet to come in his coaching career.

“We’ve had a number of guys that went into coaching and that’s neat as a coach to see former players that when they get out of the game playing-wise that they get into it coaching,” DiMare said. “It’s always surprising to see the guys that end up doing it are sometimes the guys you least would expect it. As a coach watching these former players end up choosing that as a profession, it makes you feel good. The guys want to give back and teach and be a part of the game and, certainly, I can relate to that. I’m very proud of all of our guys that are still involved in the game and in whatever capacity they are.”

Arteaga saw Rodriguez grow tremendously in his three seasons with the Canes and he expects the first year catching coach to have a long and productive career molding young catchers.

“By the time Eddy left here, I could have seen him going into coaching, but when he first got here, he was a typical 18-year old that was a little immature and kind of set in his ways,” Arteaga said. “What you hope for when you get a player to come to school is for them to mature as a person and a human being, and not just as a player, and he did that. By the end of his career here, he was a typical catcher that’s a guy that’s a field general and kind of ran the game for me, to be honest with you.

“The biggest shock to me was Eddy playing in the big leagues,” Arteaga added. “He’s a guy that defensively, yes, he always had that defensive ability to play in the big leagues that he could catch and throw, but offensively, not so much, but he did it. He’s one of those guys that wasn’t the most talented, but his mental makeup was outstanding and that’s usually what makes the best coaches. Typically, the best coaches are not the most talented players, but the smartest players and those guys that have to rely on actually preparing to be successful. Some guys in the big leagues, a lot of them are so talented, they just go to play. Those guys are great players, but not always the best coaches. With Eddy you already see it; he’s going to be a very good successful coach for a long time.”