Dereck Rodriguez has been a revelation in 2018. Seemingly out of nowhere, the son of Hall-of-Fame catcher Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez has been arguably the club’s best starter this season, posting a 2.59 ERA in 10 starts, and receiving serious buzz as a potential NL Rookie of the Year candidate.
Rodriguez, 26, spent seven years in the Twins organization before signing as a free agent with the Giants in November of last year. Interestingly, it was a conversation with Pablo Sandoval that convinced Rodriguez to come out west.
“I don’t know if you know the story, but Dereck Rodriguez actually contacted Pablo Sandoval whom he knows I think maybe from training together in Florida, and Pablo sold him on the Giants,” Giants beat writer Henry Schulman told Tolbert & Lund Tuesday. “(Rodriguez) could have gone to a lot of different places. I mean he was a minor league free agent, he could have gone anywhere and he sought Pablo’s council about the Giants. The Giants are a team that his father respects, has always respected, so I’m sure he had multiple offers and he obviously had the opportunity here because the Giants are not rich in starting pitching in the high levels of the minors, so he signed here. And the Giants got him for absolutely nothing. I mean zero is what it cost to get him.”
According to Spotrac, the Giants are paying Rodriguez just $369,180 for his services this season. Schulman says the Giants had no idea that Rodriguez could be this good when the acquired him.
“They might have been looking at a guy who could be a late reliever…maybe a back-end starter. Again, he’d only been a pitcher for about four years, so they saw the stuff, they liked the stuff, but absolutely nobody could have predicted that he’d have an ERA of about 2.60 right now and actually, since June 24, which is about five weeks now, the only two people in the majors that have a better ERA in that time are Chris Sale and Zach Greinke.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Schulman on Rodriguez, start from 5:05.