Biography

BIOGRAPHY

Dereck Rodríguez was born June 5, 1992, in Arlington, Texas. He is a pitcher in the MLB.

The Minnesota Twins selected Rodríguez in the sixth round of the 2011 MLB draft as an outfielder, and he signed for a $130,000 signing bonus. After he batted .216 with six home runs in 352 at-bats at the Rookie-level in Minor League Baseball over his first three professional seasons, the Twins converted him into a pitcher in 2014. He was 2–2 with a 1.05 ERA in 17 relief appearances for the Elizabethton Twins. In 2015, Rodríguez had a 6–3 win-loss record and a 2.85 ERA with 61 strikeouts in 12 games started for Elizabethton and was named the league's Pitcher of the Year. He also played in three games for the Cedar Rapids Kernels and Fort Myers Miracle. The next season, he pitched for Cedar Rapids, where he had a 4–11 win-loss record and a 5.08 ERA, and for Fort Myers where he pitched to a 1–2 record with a 2.56 ERA. During the 2016–17 offseason, he pitched for the Indios de Mayagüez of the Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League and then pitched for the Criollos de Caguas in the 2017 Caribbean Series. He was named to the Puerto Rican national baseball team's roster for the 2017 World Baseball Classic. In 2017, he pitched for both Fort Myers and the Chattanooga Lookouts where he compiled a combined 10–6 record and 3.27 ERA in 26 games (24 starts) between both teams.