The Hallway and the Mound

The Hallway

Following the 2020 season, the Chicago White Sox non-tendered Carlos Rodón. The day after, he and his wife Ashley canceled a planned Caribbean vacation. He set up a net in the hallway of their Indiana farm home and began throwing as hard as he could. The team that drafted him third overall in 2014 — the first college player taken that year, signed for $6.582 million — had let him go after seven seasons. Three All-Star seasons followed: 2021 in Chicago, 2022 in San Francisco, and 2025 with the Yankees.

Fifteen Hundred

On September 22, 2026, Rodón recorded his 1,500th career strikeout. The number covers 12 seasons, three teams, 242 starts, and 1,366.1 innings. He is 33, with 100 wins and 75 losses, a 3.67 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP. He has been in the majors since April 2015.

The Mound

As a freshman at North Carolina State in a 2012 NCAA Super Regional at Florida, Rodón was three innings into a perfect game when rain stopped play. He insisted on returning to the mound. Coach Elliott Avent refused and later recalled that Rodón looked ready to punch him in the mouth over the decision. Yankees teammate Aaron Judge has said Rodón flips a competitive switch on game days, an intensity that position players try to match.

Rodón was born in Miami to a Cuban immigrant father and a Cuban-American mother. The family moved to Holly Springs, North Carolina, when he was about eight. He made the Holly Springs High School varsity as a freshman and pitched the team to a 2011 state 4A championship. The Milwaukee Brewers took him in the 16th round that summer. He said no and went to NC State.

This season he has 91 strikeouts across 16 games for New York.

Reporting: FOX Sports, Raleigh News & Observer, MLB.com, Wikipedia. Career and biographical data: MLB StatsAPI, via the Fever engine.