The story of how Rainiel Rodriguez went from being an “unknown” to becoming one of Cardinals top prospects

By Rob Rains

JUPITER, Fla. – The Cardinals didn’t know much about a 17-year-old stockily-built catcher when he came to a tryout at their academy in the Dominican Republic in the spring of 2024.

Moises Rodriguez, the Cardinals’ assistant general manager in charge of international scouting, was there the day that Rainiel Rodriguez showed up.

“We had a good relationship with the agent, and he reached out to me, our local scout and our supervisor, saying he had a player,” said Rodriguez, who is not related to Rainiel.

What does he remember about that day?

“Other than he almost knocked the outfield fence down with how hard he hit the ball?” replied Rodriguez. “He just kept hitting hard-hit line drives – off the fence, one hoppers to the fence, over the fence, pull side, opposite field – it was pretty amazing how hard he was hitting the ball all over the field. That really opened our eyes.”

There was a reason that the Cardinals’ scouts weren’t as familiar with the young catcher as they were with other players in the Dominican.

“Typically guys his age get scouted for two or three years before they sign,” Moises Rodriguez said. “He had gotten to the Dominican Republic closer to his signing date than a lot of the kids we were evaluating.”

Even Rodriguez uses the word “unknown” to describe himself at the time.

“I was unknown,” he said. “How they say it in the DR, ‘I got late to the business.’”

Late or not, what Moises Rodriguez and the other Cardinals evaluators saw that day and in subsequent workouts was an impressive hit tool, especially for a catcher.

“It was obvious how hard he hit the ball, so we kept bringing him back, mainly to see if he could stick at catcher,” Moises Rodriguez said. “He was a little rough around the edges, and was a little heavier than he is now, but he just kept hitting.

“In general when you are scouting, physical projection, along with athleticism, plays into the decision making. Our main question was if he was going to have enough flexibility to stay behind the plate. If we determined he had enough for that, with the bat that he already possessed, we thought he could turn into a prospect. … Adding that bat to a catcher profile would be way more attractive and have way more value down the road.”

The consensus of the scouts was that Rodriguez could stick behind the plate and he signed as an international free agent on April 1, 2024.

Less than five months later, after ripping through the Dominican Summer League last summer, Rodriguez’s name started showing up on prospect lists. Nothing has happened to change that since, as he already has been promoted to the Class A Palm Beach Cardinals, where he is one of the youngest players in the Florida State League.

“We were lucky enough to strike a deal,” Moises Rodriguez said. “We worked hard on it … We were fortunate that he was able to hit the ground running and had the present ability to be able to perform right away. Sometimes you have tools and it won’t translate into game performance. Luckily for us his did right away.”

So why was Rodriguez an unknown to scouts last year? That’s a big part of his story.

“They said I had no chance”

Rodriguez was born in the Dominican in 2007 and began playing baseball there as a young boy but moved with his parents and older brother to Philadelphia when he was 10 years old.

“They wanted a better future,” Rodriguez said. “They had a good friend who let us stay there for a couple of months, then we found a place to stay. They worked in restaurants and my mom worked at a food truck at night. She did everything she could to provide for me and my brother.”

Rodriguez was a fifth-grader at the time, and he said the family’s intention was to stay living in the U.S. Rodriguez began high school there, and played on the school’s freshman baseball team.

When he was 16, during his sophomore year, however, the family made a decision to move back to the Dominican Republic.

“Everything was good there, but we had some family issues so we went back to the DR,” Rodriguez said. “When we got back, I just wanted to keep playing baseball until the people I was working with thought I was ready for a tryout.”

Not everybody believed that Rodriguez would be able to overcome being “late to the business.”

“They said that I had no chance,” Rodriguez said. “That helped me work harder, harder, harder, so I could prove people wrong.”

Rodriguez estimates that he had “about 60” tryouts. Two other teams, he said, wanted to sign him – Arizona and Colorado. Rodriguez turned them down.

“It was all good but I just told my agent the organization I wanted to be on,” Rodriguez said.

The organization was the Cardinals. The reason? He started following the team as a young boy because of his fondness for Albert Pujols.

“The guy I trained with in Philadelphia is really close with him, and I talked to him when I was like 13,” Rodriguez said. “Last year I got to meet him in the DR.

“It’s just special here.”

“Always able to hit”

If Rodriguez had remained in the U.S. for high school, he would be a senior this year and eligible for this week’s amateur draft.

One of the pitchers he has worked with this season, both in the Complex League and at Palm Beach, thinks Rodriguez wouldn’t be an unknown if that had happened.

“I will stand on this,” Jacob Odle said. “If he was in high school this year I think he would be projected as a top three-rounder, easily … For only being 18 he knows how to call a pretty darn good game. I have nothing but great things to say about him. He’s one of the hardest working guys I’ve seen.

“If you watch the stuff he does behind the scenes, you would understand why he has had so much growth as a player.”

As a 17-year-old last summer, Rodriguez hit 10 homers, drove in 38 runs and posted a .345 average in just 41 games in a league loaded with young Latin prospects.

Promoted to the Complex League to begin this season, Rodriguez continued to hit. In the first 20 games of the year, he hit seven homers. Even though he hasn’t been on that team for a month, he still has more homers than the rest of the players combined have hit all season  – six.

“Since I was little I was always able to hit,” Rodriguez said.

The offensive numbers have not been as good in Rodriguez’s first month in Palm Beach, but he is not discouraged.

“The gap, it’s a lot,” Rodriguez said of making the move to A ball. “The experience of the pitchers is different. They study you and pitch a little different. It makes me focus even more and take everything seriously.

“I’m making progress. The results, the numbers, don’t matter. My defense is getting better, everything is getting better. It’s part of the sport. You’ve got to maintain your focus. You’re not going to get a hit every time. You’ve got to understand that.”

The manager at Palm Beach, Gary Kendall, is in his 22nd season as a minor-league manager, which has offered him the opportunity to see and work with a lot of young players.

He thinks there could be something special about Rodriguez.

“What I see first of all is a guy who is very meticulous about everything he does,” Kendall said. “He’s very mature for his age. He’s very focused, he’s very driven. He’s loaded with strength and is very athletic … For a young player to be in this league and be battling and competitive in the way that he is, it’s very special.”

The daily grind that Rodriguez and the other players face at this level is intense. On most days, for a 6 or 6:30 p.m. game, their workday begins about 1 p.m.

“He has a cage routine, hits on the field, goes through his individual defense work, then has pitcher and catcher meetings,” Kendall said. “He’s handled all of it with a lot of maturity.”

The Cardinals have Rodriguez catching four games a week and working as the DH in another game, playing – like most of their prospects – in five out of every six games.

“He’s very humble, he’s very quiet, he just fits in,” Kendall said. “He’s a guy that kind of leads by how he plays and the other players look up to him and respond to him. To be a young catcher running a game and to be back there and show the leadership skills; he’s growing in this process. … He’s lived up his billing.”

Rodriguez homered in his first at-bat with Palm Beach but has seen his average hover around the .200 mark in his first five weeks at this level. He hit his second home run on Sunday.

“It’s tough for a young hitter because there is a lot of velocity,” Kendall said about the pitching in the league. “Usually you see it night to night. Guys are a little more around the plate than in the Complex League. One of the things I think he is starting to see is people trying to pitch around him and maybe not give him that center-cut fastball.

“He is going through the ups and downs of failure, how to handle it, how to string good at-bats together and get back on track when things aren’t going that well. He’s got a really good feel for the game.”

Perhaps because he is confident that he is going to hit, when Rodriguez talks about the adjustments he is making now, he focuses on his defense and on working with the pitching staff more than the offensive side of his game.

“The best thing I can do is be a great teammate and try to help anybody who is struggling or needs help,” said Rodriguez, who didn’t speak any English when his family moved to Philadelphia but learned it in his years of school there. “If I see somebody do something wrong I try to help them.”

It’s that quality of Rodriguez that has stood out to the older pitchers he is working with, including Odle and Nolan Sparks.

“He’s my little bro,” Odle said. “I met him when I got here in January because he was shadowing Leo Bernal. He caught a couple of my bullpens in rehab, then in live BPs and once I got in a game we were on the same page the entire time. The only time I would shake him off was with fake shakes.

“I think it’s a testament to how hard he works. He did everything the Cardinals asked of him and that’s put him in a great spot to succeed.”

Sparks was impressed by a recent conversation he had with Rodriguez after one of his starts.

“He caught me in Daytona and I kind of a had rough outing,” Sparks said. “I wasn’t keeping the hitters off-balance or throwing the right pitches. The day after, just talking with him, he is super good about talking with pitchers. I think that’s part of the catching job, understanding what the pitcher likes to do. We just had really good communication.

“I’m waiting for him to catch fire. He makes good swing decisions and when he connects with the ball he hits it hard. He’s really good behind the plate and it’s fun to work with him. He’s very mature for only being 18. He’s doing pretty darn good.”

“He knows what he wants”

What does Rodriguez think now when he looks at the lists of the top prospects in the Cardinals organization and see his name?

“It makes me feel good,” he said. “I know that the work is paying off. I’m improving a lot.”

When Moises Rodriguez watches Rodriguez play now, he can’t help but think back to the day not that many months ago when he saw Rodriguez for the first time.

“He’s always hit the ball hard,” Moises Rodriguez said. “A lot of what you are seeing now. He’s just always had an impressive hit tool.

“He’s worked himself into better shape. He’s driven to get better behind the plate and wants to stay there. He’s mentally strong and he knows what he wants.”

Kendall is seeing the same thing every night.

“I’ve had young players before,” he said. “I had Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop (with the Orioles). He falls into that in that he’s all business. You don’t really have to tell him twice. He’s so focused and driven in how he goes about his work.

“That’s been the most impressive thing for a young player. … We’re very blessed to have him.”

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Photos courtesy of Palm Beach Cardinals