But for Rodríguez, it’s all about that team’s goals. It’s why, even though he spent all of 2019 years younger than his average teammate, he views himself as a leader—and acts accordingly.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m 0-for-4 or 4-for-4, if my team wins, you will see me high five anybody,” he said. “That’s the type of leader I am. I just try to hype [my teammates] up, never let them get down.”

It’s a leadership role that extends even beyond his day-to-day ball club, with him standing as an example to the organization’s younger Latin American players trying to follow in his footsteps, as few as there may be for an 18-year-old.

“By design or not, to our younger group behind him, Julio is already kind of the grizzled veteran of that group,” Andy McKay, Director of Player Development, said. “They like to follow and he likes to lead.”

The player many diehards look to as the guy after Rodríguez is 17-year-old shortstop Noelvi Marte, who followed Rodríguez’s impressive Dominican Summer League campaign with one of his own.

“Julio is the guy I can rely on to tell me if I did something bad, he’s the guy who can communicate with anybody,” Marte said through a translator. “I haven’t had the chance to play with Julio yet, but it’s coming. We’ll play together soon.”

When we’ll to see these guys play together—not just Marte and Rodríguez, but all the high-ceiling Mariners prospects—and what type of players they’ll become is the looming question.

“To me, he has the upside of not just being a solid Major League player, but a standout Major League player who has the personality to really light up an environment,” Dipoto said of Rodríguez. “That goes from the clubhouse to the fan base to everything in-between.”

What has to happen before that does?

For Rodríguez, he’s constantly focused on improving his approach at the plate, an approach that evaluators inside and outside the organization describe as extremely advanced.

“Right now for him, it’s just his ability to continue to get better at everything he does and continue to fight and search for that extraordinary consistency where he shows up to the ballpark every day and the results become more and more predictable,“ McKay said. “The game is hard and each level presents a new challenge for you and he’ll have more challenges next year.”

It’s hard not to wonder what those challenges might be, especially when the challenges in 2019 included not only reaching High-A, but finishing up in the Arizona Fall League—a testing ground for the game’s advanced and elite prospects, many of whom will play in the Majors in 2020.