The Philadelphia Phillies, masterminded by longtime MLB roster-building guru Dave Dombrowski, nabbed one of the few impact bats left on the free-agent market late Friday night. Philadelphia agreed to a five-year, $100 million contract with righty-masher Nick Castellanos, sources familiar with the deal told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
There is no doubt that Castellanos can hit. According to the ZIPS projections at Fangraphs, he was the most productive bat left on the market, with a forecasted .366 WOBA this season, a figure approached among then-unattached players by only Carlos Correa and Trevor Story.
With Castellanos in the fold, the Phillies now feature a potent platoon tandem at DH between him and recent addition Kyle Schwarber, who agreed to a four-year, $79.5 million deal that drew high marks from yours truly.
OK, most of what you read in that last paragraph was sarcasm, but it was meant to be light-hearted. Castellanos is a very good hitter and I did really like the Schwarber signing. If the Phillies had signed Castellanos a couple of days ago, I would have liked that just as well. However, signing them both is a gambit that I am having a hard time comprehending.
That doesn’t mean I hate it. Well, I might hate it. If I’m managing the Phillies in a Strat-O-Matic replay, I’m ecstatic. If I’m Joe Girardi piloting the real thing and hoping to field a big-league caliber defense to support my pitching staff, I have some dire concerns right now. Yes, the designated hitter rule has now expanded to the National League. However, even in that context, there are only so many ham-handed defenders a championship club can accommodate.
The Phillies now have Castellanos, Schwarber, Rhys Hoskins and Bryce Harper to man the two corner-outfield slots, first base and designated hitter. They also have Alec Bohm and Didi Gregorius on board. Bohm will likely now hold down third base, with Gregorius soaking up time at shortstop and second base as needed. The problem is that DH might be the best positions for Bohm, Gregorius, Hoskins, Castellanos, Schwarber and, eventually, Harper.
Well, there were a lot of rules tweaks in the new CBA and a lot more that have been bandied about. Did baseball adopt an NFL-style platoon system of different offense and defense lineups? If that’s what happened, the Phillies are in great shape. Sorry — more light-hearted sarcasm.
Here’s where I reign in my doubt, and that’s because it’s Dombrowski calling the shots. Yes, he has a reputation for pillaging farm systems and running up payrolls, something that is now happening in Philadelphia, but he also has a knack for putting together rosters that win at a high-level. He’s been doing that since the 1980s.
Clearly, the notion here is that the Phillies will rely on a strikeout-heavy pitching staff, a very good defensive catcher in J.T. Realmuto to help them out, and then attempt to outscore opponents with a deep lineup. Maybe that can work. My concern is that it’s only one way to win and with a roster like this, you don’t give yourself any semblance of adaptability to win in other ways.
Am I overstating the defensive concerns? Defensive metrics are, after all, still a bit fickle and executives, who make decisions based on internal evaluations of defensive data that most of us are not privy to, will tell you that the public-facing metrics have sample-size issues. Fine. Let’s consider a big ol’ size of a defensive sample.
Going back to the beginning of the 2019 season, the very worst performer in Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric is Gregorius (minus-45). Ranking sixth in this category, in which you don’t want a high ranking, is Schwarber (minus-23). No. 17 is, you guessed it, Castellanos (minus-17). Only three outfielders have performed worse during that timeframe than Schwarber and Castellanos.
Meanwhile, depending on what you do with the minimum threshold for sample size, you don’t have to scan down very far to see that Harper, Bohm and Hoskins have not exactly covered themselves in defensive glory in recent seasons.
The thing about Castellanos, if you could put him on a roster where he didn’t ever see the field, he’d be a solid upgrade. The Mets, Cubs, Cardinals, Marlins and Twins are just a few teams that could have signed Castellanos, hidden him at DH, and benefited from the considerable gifts he has to offer. All of those gifts are to be found on the offensive side of things, but they are expansive. Over the past three seasons, Castellanos has hit .287/.371/.539 with 35 homers per 162 games played, per Baseball-Reference.com.
To grok the issue here, take a dip into the WAR pool. For his career, Castellanos has compiled 21.6 bWAR — on offense. His overall bWAR, after you factor in defense and baserunning and the other little things a ballplayer does, is 12.3.
In Philadelphia, this is a pattern too commonly found for one roster. You just can’t hide that many bad fielders. Dombrowski may have other moves in mind. He could look to unload Gregorius, or perhaps even Bohm, whose defense at third base screams for a position change despite his young age (25), yet he now seems blocked from moving elsewhere in Philadelphia.
If Dombrowski does keep remaking the roster, the No. 1 objective would be finding a defensive star in center field. The Phillies recently brought back Odubel Herrera to play center, but at a modest rate of $1.75 million, and he’s not likely to move the defensive needle. Now that the signing of Castellanos has broken the luxury tax seal, might as well keep spending. A wish list for good defending center field trade targets begins with Oakland’s Ramon Laureano, Baltimore’s Cedric Mullins and Tampa Bay’s Kevin Kiermaier.
Hoskins has this season plus one more season of arbitration eligibility remaining before he hits free agency, while Gregorius will be a free agent after this season. So this version of the Phillies isn’t etched in stone. Either of those players could be dealt, as could Bohm, and Dombrowski could masterfully balance all of this out.
For now, Castellanos doesn’t improve the Phillies’ 2021 win forecast as much as you might think. In my numbers, after running simulations with him in the fold, Philly’s average win total jumped a half-win, and their chances to make the playoffs eked forward from 61% to 63.
Every little bit matters and the Phillies are positioned to be a factor in the postseason chase this season. But when teams miss their projection, one of the reasons this happens is because the roster turns out to be less than the sum of its parts. A bad team defense is one reason this can happen. The Phillies better become one of baseball’s premier offenses, or else I fear this is the short-term destiny for an over-the-tax-line roster built to win now.