{"id":629150,"date":"2026-04-25T03:01:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T03:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/629150\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T03:01:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T03:01:22","slug":"ellie-rodriguez-passes-away-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/629150\/","title":{"rendered":"Ellie Rodr\u00edguez Passes Away – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ellie Rodr\u00edguez<\/a>, a two-time All-Star catcher who played throughout the 1970s, passed away this week. The news was reported by multiple outlets, including ESPN Deportes<\/a>. He was 79.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez was born in Puerto Rico but moved to the Bronx as a child. He began his playing career on a minor league contract with the then-Kansas City Athletics out of high school. His hometown Yankees plucked him away after the 1964 season. Rodr\u00edguez spent a few seasons in the Yanks\u2019 system and made a nine-game debut during the \u201968 campaign.<\/p>\n

Then 23, Rodr\u00edguez would change organizations again over the 1968-69 offseason. He\u2019d return to a K.C. club but not the one for which he\u2019d played a few seasons earlier. The new Royals franchise selected Rodr\u00edguez in the expansion draft. He was behind the plate on Opening Day as the first starting catcher in team history.<\/p>\n

A defensive catcher, he did an excellent job controlling the running game. He threw out 45% of basestealers as a rookie and was selected to the All-Star Game. Rodr\u00edguez spent one more season with Kansas City before being traded to the Brewers.<\/p>\n

The righty-hitting backstop had his best seasons in Milwaukee. He played three years and 325 games in a Brewers uniform, working as their primary catcher between 1971-73. Rodr\u00edguez was selected to his second All-Star Game in \u201972 amidst a career-best .285\/.382\/.352 showing.<\/p>\n

Milwaukee traded Rodr\u00edguez to the Angels over the 1973-74 offseason. He played two seasons in Anaheim, hitting a career-high seven homers in the first of those years. He was also behind the plate for the fourth no-hitter of Nolan Ryan\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0career during the 1975 campaign. Rodr\u00edguez closed his MLB career with a 30-game stint for the Dodgers in \u201976. He\u2019d play in the Mexican League into the 1980s and coached youth baseball in Puerto Rico as recently as 2018.<\/p>\n

Rodr\u00edguez finished his MLB career with a .245\/.356\/.308 slash line over 775 games. He only hit 16 home runs but tallied 533 hits and walked more often than he struck out. He caught nearly 6000 innings and twice led the American League in throwing out baserunners. Rodr\u00edguez cut down an MLB-high 56 stolen base attempts (a 48% clip) with the Halos in 1974. MLBTR sends our condolences to his family, loved ones, friends and former teammates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ellie Rodr\u00edguez, a two-time All-Star catcher who played throughout the 1970s, passed away this week. The news was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-629150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}