FORT MYERS, Fla. – The discharge of veteran outfielder Nick Castellanos by the Philadelphia Phillies Thursday afternoon was each surprising and a very long time coming.
Castellanos, who turns 34 on March 4, is formally available on the market. And based on New York Put up’s Jon Heyman, “there’s quite a lot of curiosity” within the brand-new free agent.
Are the Purple Sox a match?
Largely no. Nearly definitely no.
Although Castellanos is a righty bat with precisely 250 profession house runs and the Purple Sox simply spent the offseason making an attempt so as to add a righty bat and residential run energy to their lineup – ZiPS tasks Boston gained’t have a single 20-homer hitter this season – there’s no room for him wherever on the depth chart. The Purple Sox at the moment have 5 outfielders, for those who embody Masataka Yoshida, and several other gamers, once more together with Yoshida, to rotate via the designated hitter function.
Castellanos additionally hit .252 with a .719 OPS and 40 house runs within the final two years (309 video games), a major dip from the .281 common, .806 OPS, and 76 homers he put up over the previous three seasons (431 video games). His remoted energy (ISO) fell from .200 in 2021-23 to .164 over the past two seasons.
It speaks volumes that the Phillies have been keen to pay Castellanos the $20 million remaining on his five-year, $100 million contract with a purpose to sever ties season early. The Purple Sox famously took the identical, however costlier route in July 2017, once they extricated themselves from the ultimate 12 months and half of Pablo Sandoval’s five-year, $95 million contract by consuming the $48.3 million they owed him.
Above all, the Purple Sox are at a crossroads leadership-wise after dropping Alex Bregman and Rob Refsnyder in free company. Castellanos’ habits, notably the story that surfaced Thursday, and which he confirmed, about his determination to carry a beer into the dugout throughout a sport final season as a result of he took problem with a late-inning defensive substitution, point out a persona that might do extra hurt than good for a younger Purple Sox crew.
