(Photo: Dave Janosz, HV Renegades)
For a while, it seemed as though the 2020 New Balance Baseball Future Stars Series International Week event was going to be a perfect preview of what was ahead for Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz.
There he was, on the mound at Fenway Park, racking up the strikeouts for the World Team, a full year before the Boston Red Sox would take him in the fourth round with the 105th overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft.
The move up the Red Sox system was steady for the six-foot-three, 160-pound righty, including a 2024 campaign split between Low-A Salem and High-A Greenville, where he’d established himself as a likely member of the Boston rotation in the near future.
Instead, a trade.
Out of nowhere.
With the unlikeliest of partners.
On December 11, Rodriguez-Cruz and some international bonus pool money were sent to the New York Yankees in exchange for catcher Carlos Narvaez.
“I mean, I was shocked, to be honest,” Rodriguez-Cruz told FSS Plus. “I just got home, and I got the call and got the news, and it was like, ‘Wow.’ But, at the same time, baseball is a business, so you just have to keep going, keep moving forward, keep grinding. Yankees-Boston, big rivals, so there’s not many trades that happen often between them, but I’m excited for the opportunity to be here and to showcase my talents and see where it takes me.”
The Puerto Rico native is off to a great start in his new home; he came one shy of tying the High-A Hudson Valley Renegades franchise record with 12 strikeouts in his most recent start, and is 2-1 with a 2.42 ERA in his first four starts this year in his new organization.
Rodriguez-Cruz said not much has changed on his end despite the new colors.
“It’s mostly similar things,” he said. “Here, they’re really encouraging me to trust my stuff and attack. I know I have good stuff, so it’s maximizing those pitches and working in counts where I’m more effective.”
At the time he was pitching with the Future Stars Series, he was a big projection play given his very slender frame, one that he’s since put in the work to make sure he’s added on to in order to make sure he’s able to handle the rigors of full-season professional baseball.
“It was just following the plan the organization had for me to get stronger,” Rodriguez-Cruz said. “Being in the weight room, that’s something I’m still working on and something I’m going to work on for my whole career. Making sure I take advantage of the plans they have me for me, knowing the results will be better. It was mutual, but I knew the stronger I get, the more it would help me.”
In 2020, Rodriguez-Cruz used a mostly fastball-curveball-changeup mix, and was lauded for being able to throw all three for strikes. Not much has changed; he says he’s recently swapped out the change for a splitter, and also added a sweeper midway through last year, refining the release points as he learned it to make it more effective.
But, the foundation for it all was built in his amateur days, a time he’s grateful for and looks back on fondly.
“It was all about trusting myself,” he said. “When I’m at my best, I could dominate a lot and I felt like I was the best player out there. When I was playing as an amateur, maybe they didn’t have the confidence in me, so I was just trying to go out there, have fun, trust in myself. Once I turned pro, that was something I tried to emphasize more, bringing that killer mindset every time I’m going to pitch and thinking I’m the best player out there, overpower everybody. I was 17 years old at that time, I wasn’t going to have those type of skills, but it’s something I’ve been learning since I signed. I look back to those times, look back and see how many things I’ve learned, take the positives.”
It’s hard to get more positive than getting to pitch at Fenway, something he carried with him as a preview of his future. Or, so he thought for a while, anyway.
“That was a cool experience,” Rodriguez-Cruz said. “Pitching there, that was my first big league stadium I ever stepped in playing wise, so that was a fun experience. I used to look at videos of it, remember the good times. Being drafted by Boston, that was a cool moment…but you have to keep growing, take the best of everything and put it in play.”
Since 2003, he has covered multiple World Series and has worked high-profile events ranging from the MLB All-Star Game to the World Baseball Classic. In addition to his role working for the Future Stars Series that he's held since 2017, Ashmore currently serves as the beat writer of the Double-A New York Yankees affiliate, the Somerset Patriots, as well as national hockey writer and New York Jets game day beat reporter for The Trentonian.
A regular contributor to Baseball America, Ashmore has worked seven Super Bowls, 11 Stanley Cup Finals, the 4 Nations Face-Off, the NBA Playoffs, College Football Playoff National Championship Game, Frozen Four, Daytona 500, major UFC events and much more as he approaches 3,200 games covered in his career.
An avid card collector and sim racer, he lives with his wife, Sarah, their son William, and their beloved dog, Bailey, and cat, Smokey.
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