Like it or not, J-Rod's a veteran now: 'You're making me feel old'

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Julio Rodríguez was jokingly taken aback at the notion that he’s reached “veteran” status.

“Man, you’re making me feel old now,” the Mariners’ center fielder said.

It may seem paradoxical, given that he just turned 25 in December, yet Rodríguez is also embarking on his fifth full season. It seems like yesterday that he was the precocious MLB Pipeline posterboy playing his way on to the Opening Day roster for a team emerging from a rebuild.

This spring, though, he has more clarity than ever -- in his identity as a hitter and credibility in his voice within the clubhouse.

“I just feel like last year that I learned a lot of things about myself,” Rodríguez said Tuesday, ahead of the Mariners’ first full-squad workout. “The player I am, the things I like to do, the things I'm better at, the things I'm not so good at. And I feel like that gave me maturity a little bit.

“Just kind of understanding more, like I said, about myself and within the game. So, I thought it was a great year when it came to that.”

For the first time maybe ever, Rodríguez enters Spring Training without searching for much -- be it a roster spot, mechanics or approach -- other than Seattle’s elusive World Series appearance.

For some, like Cal Raleigh, the sting of last season’s end will never fade. But for Rodríguez, who was the one shouting in the background of that viral video of Bryan Woo’s postgame interview in Toronto, he quickly turned the page to 2026.

Rodríguez has always moved on easily, but now he does it with 12 more games of postseason experience -- more than double his previous go-round in 2022.

“It's addicting,” he said. “So, I feel like that's what kind of allowed me to kind of get over my emotions on that, and kind of get ready to compete again and get back to the playoffs.”

A glance at his Baseball-Reference page paints the picture of another banner year, one of durability (Rodríguez played in 160 games) and versatility (he achieved his second career 30/30 season). But there was also -- again -- a tale of two halves; the pre-All-Star break featuring numbers below his career averages and the post- in which he was one of the sport’s very best players.

“There's something unique about what he did the second half last year, as opposed to in years past,” Mariners president of baseball operations Jerry Dipoto said. “I don't know why it feels that way. It just felt like he became a more mature player who was aware of his impact on the game day in and day out.”

The well-chronicled inflection point was on July 11, when Rodríguez withdrew from what would’ve been his third All-Star Game. Seven months later, he still prefers not to delve into the specifics of how he handled that downtime, other than that it served as a mental and physical reset.

But there was clearly a switch, because from then on, he was the Mariners’ most productive player -- including Raleigh -- by almost every measure.

From that point through the postseason, Rodríguez led all Mariners hitters with 60 RBIs and in every slash line category, with a clip of .285/.349/.583 (.932 OPS), and his 25 homers ranked second to only Raleigh’s 29. On an analytical level, Rodríguez was worth 3.8 fWAR through the end of the regular season, which was tied with Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo for the MLB best.

Rodríguez’s first | second half splits (career)
BA: .260 | .297
SLG: .418 | .552
OPS: .737 | .902
wRC+: 114 | 154

All of this circles back to the defining narrative of Rodríguez’s young career -- so far -- which leads to the obvious question: Can he put it all together for a full season? If so, it would astronomically elevate Seattle’s floor and potentially push its ceiling through the roof.

“As the second half kept going on and on, I kind of kept getting more validations on those things,” Rodríguez said. “I feel like that's when I was, ‘OK, that's kind of who I am, and that's what I want to bring to the field.’”

The bridge for Rodríguez between last year’s postseason and this year’s Opening Day will be the World Baseball Classic, another playoff-like environment that could serve as a springboard to that elusive strong start.

“We're going to play very big and meaningful games, and at the beginning of March,” Rodríguez said. “That definitely ramps up everybody. I feel like those games, there's always a lot of excitement, and that's something that you can definitely bring into the season kind of right away.”