rewrite this title JAWS and the 2025 Hall of Fame Ballot: Fernando Rodney

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2025 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

Fernando Rodney is a man of many hats, most of them slightly askew. Over the course of a 17-year major league career, the Dominican-born reliever showed off his signature style while pitching for 11 different teams, and that’s not even counting his minor league, independent, winter league, or international stops. During his time, he notched 327 saves (19th all-time), made three All-Star teams, and pitched in two World Series, earning a ring with the 2019 Washington Nationals. In the process, he gave the hearts of his managers plenty of workouts as his command came and went, forcing him to work his way out of jams. But when it all came together for Rodney — as it did in 2012, when he posted a microscopic 0.60 ERA while saving 48 games for the Rays — he was a sight to behold.

Rodney’s crooked hat was just one of his famous quirks. He also shot an imaginary arrow into the sky after closing games, most famously upon recording the final out for the Dominican Republic in the 2013 World Baseball Classic championship game.

Even at age 47, five years past his last major league appearance, Rodney is still adding to his collection of hats and presumably practicing his faux archery. In November, he inked a deal with the independent Hamilton Cardinals of the Intercounty League.

“He might be the toughest pitcher I’ve ever managed,” former Tigers manager Jim Leyland told The Athletic’s Sam Blum in January 2024. “He was a warrior. He was strong as a bull. I think he’s been pitching with a torn labrum for 15 years… He loves the game. He loves the competition. It’s been his whole life.”

…

Fernando Rodney was born on March 18, 1977, in Samana, Dominican Republic to parents Ulise and Idalia Rodney. Ulise, his father, was a fisherman and the source of the inspiration for Rodney’s crooked hat. “He wore his hat to the left side of his head,” Fernando told the Mercury News‘ Martin Gallegos in 2019, “and when I asked him why, he said it was because when the sun would come out during a certain time of the day and hit that side, he would turn it that way in order to block the sun. When he passed away, I decided to keep it like that for him.”

Rodney found that the crooked hat could confuse batters and baserunners. “The hitter looks for your eyes. It’s like a dog. When you go somewhere, the first thing [a dog] looks at is your eyes and how you move,” he told the Tacoma News Tribune’s Bob Dutton in 2014. “When I put [the cap] like that, the runner at first, sometimes I think they think I’m looking at them. They say, ‘Oh, he’s looking at me,’ and they stop [from taking a bigger lead].”

The Tigers signed Rodney out of the Dominican Republic in 1997 for just a $3,000 bonus, believing he was 16 at the time. He was actually 20, a discrepancy that wasn’t ironed out until 2002 amid the federal government’s crackdown on immigration documentation in the wake of September 11. Rodney was originally an outfielder, but by the summer of 1998, he was pitching in the Dominican Summer League, armed with a fastball and a cut slider. The Tigers liked his arm strength but had concerns about his height (5-foot-11) and durability.

When Rodney came stateside in 1999, the Tigers advised him to learn a sinker to give hitters a different look, but they left him to figure out the pitch. Per the St. Paul Pioneer Press‘ Mike Berardino in 2018:

“I’m looking for a two-seam fastball but I have no idea how to throw it,” he recalled. “One day we’re in the program, early in the morning, playing catch and trying to get ready for the PFP (pitchers’ fielding practice). I told my partner at that time, Samuel Rivera, ‘Hey, I’m going to throw two-seam.’ ”

Rodney shifted his grip to the outside of the baseball, lifted his leg and fired toward Rivera. The ball dived violently toward Rivera’s ankles as Rodney’s throwing partner jumped out of the way with a yelp.

…“Don’t throw that pitch again to me,” Rivera said. “You don’t know what it is.”

Rodney began his professional career with the Tigers’ Gulf Coast League affiliate, striking out 44 batters in 36.1 innings with a 2.23 ERA. In late August, he was promoted to High-A Lakeland, where he made four appearances. After the season, Baseball America ranked him fifth on its GCL prospects list, noting his lack of height but adding, “Rodney easily had the best velocity in the Northern Division. He occasionally touched 98 mph and mixed in a quality slider, giving him the two power pitches needed to become a closer. He’s also got closer makeup to go with his stuff.”

Rodney spent time at both A-level West Michigan (2000) and Lakeland (2001) working as a starter in order to get more innings, but as BA noted, his mechanics and repertoire needed polish. “The good news about Rodney is that he’s the hardest thrower in Detroit’s system. The bad news is that his fastball is straight as an arrow. Even so, 98 mph is 98 mph,” the publication wrote in 2001.

After starting the 2002 season at Double-A Erie, the 25-year-old Rodney was called up to the majors and debuted on May 4, six days after his father’s death from cancer. His debut was inauspicious, a rough inning and a third against the Twins in Minnesota. He got the final two outs of the eighth, but the Twins loaded the bases in the ninth via a single, a sacrifice, an intentional walk, and an error by shortstop Shane Halter. Cristian Guzman then hit a bouncer that second baseman Damian Jackson stopped, but he couldn’t flip to Halter in time for the forceout; the run was unearned. Rodney took another loss in his next appearance on May 8, entering another tied game in the ninth and battling Troy Glaus for seven pitches before serving up a walk-off solo homer. It took him until his fourth outing to record his first strikeout (against the Angels’ Tim Salmon), after which he was sent back to Erie. He dominated there and at Triple-A Toledo, posting a 1.05 ERA with 43 strikeouts in 42.2 innings, but in four separate stints with the Tigers was cuffed for a 6.00 ERA with 10 walks and 10 strikeouts in 18 innings.

When the Tigers demoted Rodney to Toledo, they told him he needed another pitch. He taught himself a circle change, with the tips of his thumb and index finger slightly touching. With his older changeup grip, the pitch came in at 88-89 mph, but his new grip allowed him to slow the pitch to 84-85 mph, while adding late sink and fade to the arm side.

Rodney’s cap-tilting actually began while playing in the Dominican Winter League in 2002, though the angle would remain rather subtle until later in his career. He shuttled between Toledo and Detroit in 2003, posting a 6.07 ERA in 29.2 innings with the Tigers while converting just three of six save chances.

In the spring of 2004, Rodney tore his ulnar collateral ligament. He underwent Tommy John surgery on April 29 and missed the entire season, during which the Tigers nearly set a record for futility by losing 119 games. Coupled with a bout of shoulder inflammation the following spring, he didn’t return to major league action until June 12, 2005, and spent the season’s final two months closing after Kyle Farnsworth was traded to the Braves on July 31. Rodney notched nine saves while posting a 2.86 ERA and 8.6 strikeouts per nine in 44 innings, though the Tigers’ 8-24 record in September and October limited his ninth-inning opportunities.

With Todd Jones‘ return to the Tigers in free agency, Rodney returned to a setup role under Leyland, who had taken over for the fired Alan Trammell, and posted a 3.52 ERA (129 ERA+) with seven saves in 71.2 innings. The Tigers won 95 games and claimed the American League Wild Card spot. In the postseason, Rodney threw 3.2 scoreless innings against the A’s in the ALCS but was roughed up for four runs (two earned) in four innings by the Cardinals in the World Series, blowing a save in Game 4 due in part to his own throwing error.

Rodney spent three more years (2007–09) giving Leyland gray hair, posting a 4.48 ERA (101 ERA+) but walking an unsightly 5.0 per nine innings. To be fair, he missed considerable time in that span due to arm troubles, losing about two months to two bouts of biceps inflammation in 2007, then missing the first two months of ’08 due to shoulder impingement. He reclaimed the closer job in July 2008, and saved 13 games in 18 chances the rest of the way. In 2009, his first full season as closer, he saved 37 of the Tigers’ 86 wins and blew just one save chance while posting a 4.42 ERA in 73 games, a total that ranked seventh in the league; Rodney’s 65 games finished led the circuit.

Rodney’s last appearance of 2009 stung, however. With the Tigers and Twins tied at 85-77 through 162 games, the two teams faced off in Minnesota in a tiebreaker. Rodney entered the game in the ninth inning with the score tied 4-4 and a runner on second with one out. He escaped that jam, but after the Tigers scored a run off Jesse Crain in the top of the 10th, Rodney allowed a leadoff triple by Michael Cuddyer, who came around to re-tie the game. He was still on the mound in the 12th inning but faltered; Carlos Gomez singled, took second on a groundout, and scored the AL Central-winning run on Alexi Casilla’s single.

A free agent that winter, Rodney signed a two-year, $11 million deal with the Angels, but things didn’t go well. He was in and out of the closer job in 2010 and ’11, and limited to 32 innings and three saves in the latter season, during which he clashed with manager Mike Scioscia. For the two seasons, he posted a 4.32 ERA (91 ERA+) with a net of -0.3 WAR.

It would not have been a surprise if Rodney had faded into obscurity at that point, but instead, he got a new lease on life with a one-year, $2 million deal with the Rays. While Farnsworth was expected to serve as the team’s closer, an elbow strain left manager Joe Maddon with Rodney and Joel Peralta as his ninth-inning options. Rodney got first crack and converted his first four save chances before allowing a single run. By the time he blew his first save, on May 26, he had notched 15 saves and, after allowing two earned runs, owned a 1.13 ERA.

The Rays had directed Rodney to move to the first-base side of the rubber, which gave him better command of his sinker, which by this point he was throwing 53% of the time; after hitting .316 and slugging .395 against it in 2011, batters hit .235 and slugged .261 against it in ’12. His changeup was even more unhittable, with batters managing just a .070 AVG and .079 SLG in 121 PA against it, with a 51.2% whiff rate. Rodney not only notched 48 saves (second in the league) while blowing just two, he posted a 0.60 ERA in 74.2 innings, the lowest single-season mark to that point for any pitcher with at least 50 innings (Zack Britton’s 0.54 surpassed it in 2016). His 3.7 WAR that year accounts for half of his career value.

In his career year — at age 35! — Rodney made his first All-Star team, placed fifth in the Cy Young voting (and 13th in the MVP voting) and meshed well with Maddon, who said of the closer’s crooked hat, “I know some baseball purists don’t like it or dig it… I love it, and you could put a capital L-O-V-E in there. He’s just expressing himself and for those that have a hard time with that, too bad.”

Rodney’s bow-and-arrow celebration began during the 2012 season. It was another reference to his roots, in this case his hometown. Via The New York Times‘ Tyler Kepner in 2018:

As the story goes, natives of Samaná greeted Christopher Columbus with arrows after he arrived on their shores in 1493, inspiring the nickname Golfo de Las Flechas, or Bay of Arrows, for the area. But there was another reason for Rodney’s ritual.

“I watch a lot of the Animal Channel, and you see the guy get the arrow and shoot,” he said. “When they shoot it in a good spot, they can run, but you know they’re going to be dead. So that’s how the idea got in my mind: When I shoot the arrow, the game is over.”

The Rays missed the playoffs in 2012, but picking up Rodney’s $2.5 million option was a no-brainer. Before the start of the season, Rodney’s stature increased even further with his play in the World Baseball Classic. Rodney had pitched for the Dominican Republic in 2006, when the team finished fourth, but not in ’09. He was so eager to return to the event that he claimed not to have even cleared it with the Rays, telling the Dominican newspaper El Caribe, “You don’t have to ask permission to represent your country.”

The Dominican team featured All-Stars such as Robinson Canó, Nelson Cruz, Edwin Encarnación, Hanley Ramirez, José Reyes, Miguel Tejada and more, though the pitching was considerably weaker. Nonetheless, they ran the table, going 8-0, with Rodney saving seven of their wins without allowing a single run; he yielded just one hit and three walks in 7.1 innings while striking out eight. He additionally injected some entertaining lore into the tournament by obtaining a plantain from a fan at AT&T Park before the team’s semifinals game against the Netherlands in exchange for an autographed baseball, then adopting it as the team’s lucky charm. He displayed it during player introductions and claimed that it had been flown in from the D.R., a story that was, alas, too good to be true.

Rodney never came close to matching his 2012 performance, but he was a better reliever in the years following that season than he’d been before, no small feat for a pitcher on the wrong side of 35. In 2013 with the Rays, he was solid but not exceptional, posting a 3.38 ERA and saving 37 games (in 45 attempts) in 66.2 innings. He had a rocky four-out save against the Blue Jays on the final scheduled day of the regular season, in which he allowed two inherited runners to score. The win sent the Rays to a Game 163 tiebreaker against the Rangers, which they won; Rodney then pitched a scoreless ninth to finish off a 4-0 Wild Card Game win over Cleveland, but allowed runs in each of his two Division Series appearances against Boston, vulturing a win in Game 3.

Even if his performance remained somewhat erratic, Rodney’s time with the Rays and in the WBC amplified his stature. His sense of humor and ability to mentor young pitchers became his calling cards as much as his sinker/changeup combo. Teams signed up for the Fernando Rodney Experience while knowing, as USA Today’s Jorge L. Ortiz put it, “The whole endeavor is not suitable for cardiac patients.”

Rodney signed a two-year, $14 million deal with the Mariners in 2014, then led the AL with 48 saves (in 51 attempts) and a 2.85 ERA in 66.1 innings in his first year — making his second All-Star team — but pitched his way out of the closer role and off the roster in his second. Carrying a 5.68 ERA, he was designated for assignment in late August, then traded to the Cubs, for whom he promptly reeled off 12 innings with a 0.75 ERA for the playoff-bound team. He signed a one-year, $2 million deal with the Padres for 2016, with a club option for ’17, then continued his late-’15 dominance by posting a 0.31 ERA in 28.2 innings. The Padres sold high, trading him to the Marlins for prospect Chris Paddack on June 30. Rodney’s ERA was still just 1.04 when he represented the Marlins at the All-Star Game, though he was lit for a 5.89 ERA in 36.2 innings during his time with Miami.

Rodney continued to keep the U.S. Postal Service on its toes with his changes of address. He spent 2017, his age-40 season, with the Diamondbacks, saving 39 games with a 4.23 ERA; the last of those saves was the 300th of his career.

Rodney put up a 3.36 ERA in a 2018 season that began with him closing in Minnesota and ended with him setting up in Oakland. The A’s then picked up his $4.25 million option, only to release him in late May after he was torched for 15 runs in 14.1 innings. Rodney landed on his feet, signing with the Nationals and pitching to a 4.05 ERA in 33.1 innings. He made half a dozen low-leverage relief appearances for them during their postseason run to a championship, including three in the World Series against the Astros; somehow he managed to walk nine batters in 4.2 innings yet allow only two runs. His first World Series appearance, a scoreless inning in Game 2, made him the fourth player to appear in all four rounds of the postseason for both AL and NL teams, joining Carlos Beltrán, Jon Lester, and Ben Zobrist.

Even after winning a World Series at age 42, Rodney wasn’t ready to stop pitching. After making one appearance for the independent Sugar Land Skeeters in 2020, he signed a minor league deal with the Astros and spent five weeks at their alternate training site. From 2021–23, he split his year between the Mexican League (the Toros de Tijuana for 2021–22, and the Diablo Rojos del Mexico and Leones de Yucatan for ’23) and the Dominican Winter League. A year ago, he told The Athletic he was looking for a shot at a major league comeback:

“I’m trying to get to 50,” Rodney said flatly, before bellowing out a laugh. Even he knows how ridiculous it sounds. “That’s my guess right now. I still touch 95, 94, 93, 92 when I want. I think there can be three more years.

…“There’s a 99 percent chance it’s not going to be,” Rodney said. “There’s no guarantee it’s going to happen.”

Fernando Rodney abides. I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowing he’s out there, peering in with that cockeyed hat, pitching out of a jam somewhere.