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)
He definitely is one of those guys who has the ability to snap back to his earlier career form if the matchup is right or he gets hot. But I'm concerned that this is the 2nd sub-replacement level season he's had in 3 years, his power is weirdly down again, all of those _expected_ stats you mentioned are still below league average (much less the actual stats), and his defense has always been poor (so he needs to hit to be valuable). The Phillies are just fortunate they're so good that they have the luxury of still being on track to win 100 games despite a guy in the middle of the lineup producing so little!
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)
He definitely is one of those guys who has the ability to snap back to his earlier career form if the matchup is right or he gets hot. But I'm concerned that this is the 2nd sub-replacement level season he's had in 3 years, his power is weirdly down again, all of those _expected_ stats you mentioned are still below league average (much less the actual stats), and his defense has always been poor (so he needs to hit to be valuable). The Phillies are just fortunate they're so good that they have the luxury of still being on track to win 100 games despite a guy in the middle of the lineup producing so little!