Giants: Pros and cons of signing Nicholas Castellanos
The Giants have been connected to outfielder Nicholas Castellanos for much of the offseason as they look to add a power hitting, corner outfielder to the roster.
As a right-handed slugger, adding Nicholas Castellanos would check off a number of boxes for the San Francisco Giants.
The team has been linked to the 27-year-old throughout the offseason, and he is one of the top remaining bats on the free-agent market.
However, the Giants are not his only suitor:
While Castellanos appears to have a stout market, the Giants will have to determine if the pros outweigh the cons in signing him.
Last season, he posted a .289/.337/.525 line with 27 home runs and 73 RBI across 664 plate appearances.
He certainly helped his future earnings by going on a tear following a midseason trade to the Chicago Cubs. In 51 games following the trade, he recorded a .321/.356/.646 line with 16 home runs and 36 RBI.
While the Cubs playoff push fell short, it was not due to the production from Castellanos as he lived up to the expectations of being a major trade deadline acquisition.
The longtime Detroit Tigers standout is a free agent for the first time in his career. MLB Trade Rumors predicted that Castellanos will secure a four-year, $58 million contract at the start of the offseason.
The caveat to that prediction is that nearly every high-profile free agent has scored a contract significantly higher than their projected earnings. Castellanos is likely to land a contract much higher than his predicted figure as well.
As a result, the Giants will have to decide if Castellanos is worth the inflated investment.
The Pros
Due to his midseason trade, Castellanos was not eligible for a qualifying offer, which means that the team that signs him will not have to forfeit a draft pick.
Draft pick compensation typically scares off some teams, but the lack of any draft pick tied to Castellanos’ name is especially appealing to a rebuilding team like the Giants.
In signing the corner outfielder, the Giants would be able to improve their 2020 roster and beyond without hurting the team’s draft strategy next June.
In the batter’s box, Castellanos brings an immediate middle-of-the-order threat to a team that does not have enough. Since 2016, Castellanos has posted a .286/.336/.504 line with a 120 OPS+ across 2,454 plate appearances. The Giants do not have any players who can reliably produce at that level.
Along these same lines, Giants team president Farhan Zaidi has stated his desire to add more power to the lineup, and Castellanos brings a potent bat to the table.
During that same four-year stretch, Castellanos averaged 24 home runs and 41 doubles per season. Clearly, he is not merely a gap-to-gap hitter. His ability to hit the long ball would be a breath of fresh air for the Giants.
A concern with any potential power hitting target is whether his power will play at the expansive dimensions of Oracle Park.
Comerica Park, where Castellanos spent parts of seven seasons, is not a hitter-friendly park either. In fact, he was critical of the park’s dimensions in an interview with 97.1 The Ticket this past June:
“This park’s a joke. It’s to the point where, how are we going to be compared to the rest of the people in the league for power numbers and OPS and slugging and all this stuff, when we’ve got a yard out here that’s 420 feet straight across to center field? We get on second base, third base, and (opposing players) looking like, ‘how do you guys do this?’ We play 81 games here, I don’t want to hear it about your two you hit that are questionable.”
Castellanos may not have had a favorable opinion of Comerica Park’s dimensions, but he produced an .806 OPS in his career at the Tigers’ home ballpark, so the 420-foot fences did not hold him back.
Lastly, the Giants projected starting outfield includes Mike Yastrzemski and Alex Dickerson. Both are left-handed hitters, and as a right-handed bat, Castellanos would give the Giants much-needed balance in the outfield.
Now let’s look at the cons.
The Cons
As good as Castellanos’ bat has been in recent years, his glove is still very much a work in progress. The 27-year-old began his major league career at the hot corner.
However, the defensive metrics were not a fan of his work. In four seasons at third base, Castellanos generated -64 DRS and -7.4 UZR, which are well below average marks.
Those struggles forced the Tigers to move him to the outfield. In four seasons as an outfielder, Castellanos has produced -36 DRS and -11.6 UZR. Similar to his work at third base, his glove in the outfield rates as well below average.
The right-handed hitter is still relatively young at 27 years of age and he has limited experience in the outfield, so there is reason to believe he has room to improve.
However, if the Giants were to add him, they would likely need to pair him with strong gloves in both center field and right field. They may be able to hide his glove in left field.
Of course, there are no assurances that Castellanos will improve in the outfield. As he ages, he could regress defensively and essentially become a designated hitter stuck on a National League roster.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler took an unorthodox approach in filling his coaching staff by adding personnel with relatively limited coaching experience. The theme with these additions was that the coaching staff was going to play a more proactive role in player development at the major league level.
Perhaps, Castellanos would be a good litmus test, albeit an expensive one, in how effective the coaching staff is at helping improve a player’s glove work.
On a smaller note, Castellanos’ offensive profile has red flags as well. Throughout his career, the right-handed slugger has posted a 6.4 percent walk rate against a 23 percent strikeout rate. The low walk rate is especially concerning given that the Giants posted one of the lowest walk rates in baseball at 7.7 percent as a team. That is an area they need to improve upon.
It is a minor red flag, and if Castellanos is able to reach the 20-home run plateau and hit for a high enough batting average, then this will be easy to overlook.
Final Thoughts
The Giants are still early in their rebuild, but they plan to be competitive in a year or two. That process does not happen overnight. Adding Castellanos would immediately improve the 2020 roster and accelerate the process of building up the roster over time.
Given that Castellanos does not have any draft pick compensation tied to his name, signing him would not hurt the team’s draft strategy in June.
However, marquee free agents have exceeded their projected earnings this offseason, so the Giants will need to be comfortable in going above and beyond what they believe Castellanos’s on-field production is worth. If their goal is to be competitive in the near future, then adding a bat like his will give them an immediate offensive threat.