Nick Castellanos Is Having an All-Time “Bad Player on a Great Team” Season
The Phillies have been great. Castellanos has not.
The Philadelphia Phillies are currently the best team in baseball, and starting right fielder Nick Castellanos has been a mainstay through it all. He’s been in the lineup for all of the team’s games: Hitting near the middle of the order most of the time, he ranks third on the team in plate appearances. He also leads the club in innings played in the field. Ever since Castellanos joined the Phillies in 2022, he’s been one of the central characters on a team that went to a World Series, made consecutive NLCS appearances and has a strong chance to go on another deep run this year.
The only issue? Castellanos has been one of the least valuable performers in baseball this year, potentially setting up a historic season in terms of bad players meeting great teams.
According to Wins Above Replacement, Castellanos is on pace to be worth -2.66 WAR in 2024, which went into Monday ranking sixth-worst in MLB. The only players who were lower on the list: Elehuris Montero, Martin Maldonado, our pal Kyle Hendricks, Jose Abreu and Andrew Benintendi.
Notice how most of these other guys play for teams ranging from just OK to really, really bad. But Castellanos stands out because his poor performance is juxtaposed against a team that’s winning more than 70 percent of its games. The only other player even close in terms of that seemingly paradoxical combination is Baltimore Orioles LF Austin Hays, who is also tracking to be more than two-and-a-half wins in the hole for a team that is also one of this year’s leading World Series contenders.
If they keep this up, Castellanos and Hays would find themselves in extremely rare historical company. Including 2024 numbers, here are the worst WAR-per-162 seasons ever by AL or NL players whose teams won at least 95 games per 162:1
Not since Milt Stock hit for a .570 OPS and played a terrible third base for the Brooklyn Robins — which is what the Dodgers were called for a spell — in 1924, literally 100 years ago to the season, have we seen a player produce WAR at such a bad rate for a team this good.
But there is good news for Castellanos. Regression is a powerful thing, and there are a lot of names from 2024 also on this list — it’s unlikely all (or even most) of them will stay there by season’s end, so it’s reasonable to think Castellanos will find a way to play himself out of Milt Stock territory. Indeed, Castellanos has an OPS nearly 150 points higher in May than he did in April, indicating that he is potentially finding more of a groove as the season goes on.
However, even his improved May numbers are below league average at the plate, and Castellanos’ poor defense (he’s tracking for -12 runs vs. an average RF over a full season) has been a problem forever. No matter what happens, he will likely end up sticking out as a weak link for a team that otherwise has a wealth of elite talent just about everywhere else.
Of course, just as having one or two great players can’t guarantee a baseball team success, having a very bad player doesn’t necessarily derail a great team. The Phillies aren’t only as good as their weakest link; they’re good regardless. But like Milt Stock with the 1924 Robins, Castellanos certainly isn’t helping the 2024 Phils be better so far this season.
Filed under: Baseball
I see Castellanos breaking out of this. Batted ball metrics are in is favor. He has an xwOBA .041 higher than his wOBA (.300 vs. .259), xBA of .238 vs. actual BA of .198 and .383 xSLG vs. .309 SLG. He also showed in last year's NLDS that he can break out at any time and be literally one of the most valuable players on the team. He hit 4 homers in 4 games with an OPS of 1.796 against the Braves. Even as a Phillies fan myself, I have full faith in Castellanos and see this slow start as just a long slump (one which every player has to some extent in any part of their career at least once or twice)