SEATTLE – Julio Rodríguez is everything everyone could possibly want in a ballplayer.
He has top-of-the-scale athleticism to pair with his natural charm and an easygoing personality.
He signed a mega-contract extension to stay in Seattle through the prime of a career that’s on a Hall of Fame trajectory.
And he just helped lead the Mariners to their first division title in 24 years.
And yet, Jerry Dipoto argued, the Mariners’ center fielder doesn’t get nearly the credit he deserves.
“I think Julio is regarded as a superstar outside of the Seattle market,” Dipoto, the Mariners president of baseball operations, said. “And here in our market, we expect so much more out of him, and the pressure that we put on him … it’s pretty fascinating.
“The fact that we get to watch (him) every day, we’re a little spoiled. There is an element of greatness to what he’s done his first handful of years that we probably don’t appreciate.”
Cal Raleigh’s 60-homer, MVP-caliber season has been the biggest story in baseball, and that has naturally overshadowed just about everything else going on around the Mariners this season.
But it’s Rodríguez’s right-on-cue second-half surge that helped spark the Mariners’ return to the postseason, and Rodríguez’s presence is one of the main reasons why so many are bullish on the Mariners’ chances of reaching the franchise’s first World Series.
Rodríguez, 24, had his best all-around season in 2025, posting a 6.8 WAR (via Baseball Reference) that ranks No. 8 among all MLB players. In 160 games, he matched his career high with 32 homers and stole 30 bases, joining Kansas City’s Bobby Witt Jr. as the only players with multiple 30/30 seasons at age 24 or younger.
Ken Griffey Jr. posted a 21.4 bWAR through his first four seasons with the Mariners (1989-92).
Rodríguez’s first four seasons: 22.9 bWAR.
That places him just behind Jay Buhner (23.0) for 10th place on the Mariners’ all-time bWAR list.
“The more you play games, the more you see pitchers, the more you get yourself into different situations, I feel like there’s a lot that you learn from that,” Rodríguez said Sunday. “I’m not taking that for granted. I’ve been trusting my gut this year, and I feel like that’s what’s allowed me to have success, knowing that I’ve done it before. And it feels really good.”
Dipoto said Rodríguez is on “a Hall of Fame path,” and Rodríguez’s desire to be great has been deliberate.
“Julio has spent a ton of time over the course of the last two years or so studying great athletes from other sports, studying what great players do, trying to evolve in a way like the Michael Jordans and the LeBron James’ and the Kevin Durants and the Tom Bradys – that’s where his focus has been,” Dipoto said. “And kind of like our evolution (as a team) over these last four or five years, it’s not easy. Sometimes it’s not linear. You’re going to bump your head; you’re going to fall off the cart and then you get back on.
“The same is true when you come up as a 21-year-old and you’re trying to figure out how to corral this type of talent. … But he is really smart. He’s in tune with who he is and he is very much in tune with who he wants to be.”
The trade-deadline additions of Eugenio Suárez and Josh Naylor gave the Mariners perhaps the best and deepest lineup in the American League, and that depth helped take pressure of Rodríguez, in particular.
“It’s huge,” Rodríguez said. “We all rely on each other. You know the guy behind you, the guy in front of you, is going to do what needs to be done in any situation. You don’t feel like it’s all you, you know. We have a really good team and that’s what makes it very exciting to play with these guys, because everybody’s prepared, everybody’s ready to compete. …
“And I feel like that’s something that is very exciting and unique about this team, that we have a lot of guys that can get it done.”
In 2022, Suárez watched up close as Rodríguez broke through as a 21-year-old rookie, helping the Mariners end a 21-year playoff drought.
After a year and a half in Arizona, Suárez has marveled at Rodríguez’s growth.
“He understands his role,” Suárez said. “It’s not just going outside, make a good play, hit a homer; it’s the leader he is. He is always happy. When things don’t go his way, he turns the page quick and he’s ready for the next day. You see that growth … and that’s the guy you need by your side.
“When I see him with that energy, always loud and always happy, and I feel good for him. I feel so happy for him – him and Cal both. They make this thing better. They are the face of this organization. It’s unbelievable what they’re doing. I’m so happy for them and I feel so glad to be part of that.”
Rodríguez has proved to be a second-half player – it’s just who he is.
After another so-so first half this season, he was named to the AL All-Star team for the third time but he declined to attend. He needed a break.
That decision, Rodríguez said later, “put me in a much better head space and in a better spot to be able to be myself, and to be able to play my best.”
Over his final 68 games, Rodríguez ranked among the top-10 hitters in MLB, posting a .299/.356/.598 slash line (. 954 OPS) with 21 homers, 16 doubles and 51 RBIs. He should finish among the top 7 in AL MVP voting for the third time in his career.
Rodríguez played what Dipoto has called the best game of his career in the Mariners’ 10-2 victory in Atlanta on Sept. 6, hitting two home runs, including the go-ahead seventh-inning blast into the Truist Park waterfall in center field (he also made a spectacular running catch in the gap earlier in the game).
That snapped a four-game losing skid and began a 10-game winning streak for the Mariners, who went on to win 17 of 18 to take control of the AL West.
Rodríguez also set the stage for the Mariners’ sweep of the Astros with his first-inning homer off ace Hunter Brown, on a 97-mph sinker well inside, in the opening game of that series in Houston.
“All it really took was the mental release (at the All-Star break) to say, ‘I’m not right, and I need to get right,’ ” Dipoto said. “And then, literally, that day he just started breaking and has been one of the best players in baseball since then. I think he should win a Gold Glove. And if he doesn’t, it’s a crime. …
“What we watched from July to the end of the year was the last step of him evolving into one of the most complete players in the game. He does everything and he’s done everything since the day he lined up on a major league field. He’s just now doing it consistently the way the great players do.”