Eduardo Rodriguez walked into a meeting at the Gaylord Opryland Resort in Nashville and immediately felt at home. It had been seven years since Rodriguez shared a dugout with Torey Lovullo and an organization with Mike Hazen, then the Red Sox bench coach and general manager, respectively. But to hear those in the room tell it, the years washed away before their meeting could even begin.

“I literally said, ‘What’s up bro?’” Rodriguez said. “That’s kind of like the relationship we had back there, especially with Torey.”

Two hours later, at the end of what Hazen described as “probably the longest player meeting I’ve ever had, especially in the Winter Meetings setting,” the seeds had been sown for the four-year, $80 million contract that Rodriguez finalized on Tuesday. The deal made him the third highest-paid free agent in Diamondbacks’ history and a crucial piece of their rotation as they aim to cement themselves as contenders in the National League.

“When we walked out of there, he said, ‘This is where I want to go,’” Gene Mato, Rodriguez’s agent, relayed. “I said, ‘Well, we’ve got (four) more meetings we’ve got to go to.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to meet with anybody else.’ I said, ‘Well, you have to.’”

Rodriguez ultimately went through all seven of his scheduled meetings in Nashville. The heavy slate was planned by Mato for Rodriguez to answer questions about why he rejected a move to the Dodgers at the trade deadline, choosing to remain with the Tigers for the remainder of the 2023 season.

At the time, Rodriguez’s wife and kids had recently moved to Detroit, and leaving them behind to move across the country — and then to likely move again in the off-season — was an uncomfortable proposition. “I decided to stay because I didn’t want to leave my family so far away,” Rodriguez said.

In that sense, Arizona provided a logical choice, one that would enable Rodriguez’s family to remain in one place all season, even during spring training. Still, he emerged from his busy slate at the Winter Meetings with two finalists for his signature.

“I called Mike (Hazen) and I said, ‘Hey, man, he really wants to sign with you guys,’ but we had another club that was pushing on him hard,” Mato said. “They made an offer and I went and sat down in a room with (Hazen and assistant General Manager Amiel Sawdaye) for a couple of hours and worked on it.”

Mato’s second meeting with the Diamondbacks’ brass got the deal over the line. But it was the first meeting, with Rodriguez in tow, that made both the team and player comfortable with the commitment they were making. For Rodriguez, it was a comfort to commit what is likely the rest of his prime to the Diamondbacks. For Arizona, it was a comfort to make their most significant free-agent signing since the disastrous acquisition of Madison Bumgarner.

While Rodriguez’s familiarity with his new manager and general manager created a laid-back atmosphere, filled with old stories from Boston, perhaps the biggest takeaway from the meeting laid in their shared philosophy.

“He talked very specifically about what type of a pitcher he is, the things that he's capable of doing,” Lovullo said. “Being able to repeat deliveries, repeat pitches. He went into several sequences of pitches that he's been throwing guys, and I like specific answers like that. Those are the things that really stood out to me. That got me fired up that he's able to get as specific as he did.”

Lovullo said that Rodriguez’s thoughtful approach to pitching was evident from the first time they worked together during the left-hander’s rookie season in 2015. “And I think it's just been enhanced over the six or seven years that we've been apart,” Lovullo said.

During his introductory news conference Tuesday, Rodriguez provided a small glimpse into that mindset when he was asked about his slider, which showed improved results in 2023.

“I know the numbers were fine, but the only thing I can tell you is wait until you see it this year,” Rodriguez said. “I’m working to make it better. If you think it was good this past season, this year will be a lot better.”

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In Nashville, that mentality stood out to the Diamondbacks not only in how Rodriguez spoke about himself but also in his questions regarding pitching coach Brent Strom and Arizona’s pitching program. The conversation showed the Diamondbacks a cerebral nature reminiscent of Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, their top two starters.

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“We talk about pitchers as they get to a certain age and beyond, they need to continue to reinvent themselves,” Hazen said. “… We’ve watched Merrill Kelly go out there and become better and better and better every year. That’s not an accident. There’s work and there’s planned adjustments that he made — that he walks in wanting to do — and fine-tuning things. We feel like Eduardo wants to do those same things and is going to do those same things and get better.”

The Diamondbacks’ sales pitch, of course, was also easier than it might have been a year ago.

“Certainly coming off a World Series,” Hazen said, “some of that speaks for itself.”

The revenue from that run also opened up the financial flexibility to sign Rodriguez even after trading for Eugenio Suarez, who is set to make $11 million this season.

“We've made two not-insignificant moves,” Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick said. “… Could we have done both of those moves without having a playoff run? Perhaps. But we sure can do that and more now that we did have the good fortune of our team going deep in the playoffs.”

As with any free-agent signing, the financial side played a significant role in the Diamondbacks’ ability to acquire Rodriguez. But in the end, so too did the conversations they had over those two crucial hours in Nashville.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How one crucial meeting helped Diamondbacks sign Eduardo Rodriguez