TAMPA, Fla. — Carlos Rodon couldn’t pitch anymore.
He was broken down and used up.
He was a bust.
Does any of that sound familiar?
In Rodon’s mind, at least, that was the book on him after the White Sox’ pandemic-shortened 2020 season ended in a three-game American League wild-card series defeat against the A’s. He’d made it all the way back from Tommy John surgery and had only 7⅔ innings under his belt when then-manager Rick Renteria sent him in from the bullpen in the decisive Game 3 at the Oakland Coliseum. Let’s just say it didn’t go so well.
The lefty had been through the wringer and then some since being drafted by the Sox at No. 3 overall in 2014 and turning in a fine rookie performance in 2015. He hurt his wrist in 2016, had biceps trouble in 2017, couldn’t get his shoulder right in 2018. The Tommy John surgery — the big one — came a year after that.
And then the Sox broke through to the playoffs essentially without him. They were a rising force to be reckoned with. Rodon no longer was a big part of the front office’s plans.
He’d heard criticism from outside the club but felt it from within it, too.
The Sox non-tendered him, a nicer-sounding way of saying they gave him the heave-ho. But that right there — that moment of rejection and the apparent finality of it — lit a fuse in Rodon that hasn’t stopped burning.
“I don’t want to come off as a [expletive] toward the White Sox, but I’ll say this,” he says now. “When I got non-tendered, I wasn’t hurt but I took it as a slap in the face. And maybe I deserved it. It was a business decision. It’s business, nothing personal — it’s a movie quote, as we know, and it’s true.
“But as a player, you’d better take that personally because if you don’t, you’re just going to be done. I took it personally, and it gave me an edge — and that’s what made me get here now.”
Rodon, still only 30, is a Yankee with a blockbuster six-year, $162 million free-agent contract and — eventually — the No. 2 spot in a World Series-or-bust rotation also featuring ace Gerrit Cole, Nestor Cortes and Luis Severino. He will miss the start of the season after his spring was put on hold Thursday due to what general manager Brian Cashman termed a “mild strain” in his left forearm.
Only two-time Cy Young winner Jacob de Grom, who signed for five years and $185 million with the Rangers, landed a bigger offseason deal among pitchers.
That’s how a major-market club that’s always in win-now mode — a club that went all-in on Rodon even after extending MVP slugger Aaron Judge for $360 million — does it.
“Look, I came to the Yankees because I wanted to win,” Rodon says, “and I’m ecstatic that I’m a Yankee and I’m going to get a chance to pitch in multiple postseason runs for the rest of my career. They’re invested in their players, they invest in their facilities, their staff, everything. Baseball is at the forefront for them. Winning is at the forefront. Like, they care about it.
“I’m not trying to hate on the White Sox. I met a lot of good people, had a lot of good relationships, had a lot of ups and downs, learned a lot about myself and the pitcher I am and the person I am. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
Rodon ended up, somewhat surprisingly, back with the White Sox in 2021 on a one-year, $3 million deal as a rotation possibility and, on the whole, crushed the opportunity. He threw a 114-pitch no-hitter in his second start, an extremely taxing early outing that he believes led to shoulder fatigue and pitch counts down the line. Still, he made his first All-Star team, won 13 games with a sparkling 2.37 ERA and finished fifth in AL Cy Young voting for a division champion.
“That pitching staff, we carried that team to the postseason,” he says. “Obviously the offense did as well, but the pitchers pitched us to that frickin’ division and to the ALCS.”
It felt like sweet vindication to Rodon, who’d been motivated — as he still is — by proving the Sox’ bigwigs wrong.
“ ‘Can he pitch?’ ” he says. “Well, obviously I showed I could. I just shut up a lot of people, and it felt good. I’m glad I did. I’m glad I got doubted. I’m glad they doubted because it made me better, made me a lot better. …
“It was like, ‘All right, I’ll show you I can still do it, and then you’re going to miss me when I’m gone.’ And [they] do.”
The Sox didn’t pony up to keep him — an $18.4 million qualifying offer too rich for their blood — so he signed for two years and $44 million with the Giants and, in 2022, went 14-8 with a 2.88 ERA in 31 starts, leading all big-league starters at 12 strikeouts per nine innings. After a second straight All-Star season, he exercised an opt-out clause and entered free agency. The Yankees rang the bell in clamorous fashion.
Think the Sox could use a guy like Rodon in 2023?
Don’t think they didn’t rub him the wrong way. Outside the home clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field, Rodon likened his feelings toward the team that drafted him to Michael Jordan’s old way of internalizing affronts — some real, some not — and being driven by them.
“It might have been me inventing something,” he says, “but to me it wasn’t. It was as real as that wall right there. And that’s what made me get here now.”
He’s already dreaming of October.
“I can’t imagine pitching in Game 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, whatever it is, of the World Series,” he says. “I guess I’ll see when I get there. I hope it’s this year.”
And he has no regrets.
“I’ll take the ups and downs, I’ll take the punches, and I wouldn’t change it for anything,” he says. “Obviously, it’s easy to say that where I’m standing now, but even before. I was definitely frustrated with the game, the way it went down for me early on. I didn’t want to be hurt. I didn’t ask for injury. I wanted to be on the field partaking and participating. Unfortunately, that’s just how it went for me.
“Looking back at it now, I think it made me who I am as a pitcher and a man. I’m very grateful for it.”
