The Tigers pursued an extension with outfielder Nicholas Castellanos “to no avail” following the 2017 season, MLB.com’s Jason Beck reports. The 25-year-old slugger (26 in March) posted a very solid .272/.320/.490 batting line in a breakout campaign at the plate and gave the Tigers room for further optimism; Castellanos ranked fifth in the Majors in hard-contact rate (among qualified hitters), and Statcast credited him for the 10th-highest number of barreled balls in MLB. He has a projected arbitration salary of $7.6MM, per MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz, and is still under club control for another two seasons. Defensive question marks abound with Castellanos, as he’s rated poorly both at third base and in right field, but there’s plenty of value in his bat. The inability to come to terms on an extension only furthers the chance that the rebuilding Tigers trade Castellanos before he reaches free agency.
A few more notes from around the AL…
- MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch writes that the Yankees seem likely to bring in an infield option from outside the organization to man either second base or third base in 2018. Trades of Starlin Castro and Chase Headley freed those two spots up, and while Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar give the Yanks a pair of high-upside assets at those positions, some additional certainty and depth in a season with lofty expectations seems plenty reasonable. Per Hoch, the Yankees have been in touch with Todd Frazier, and it’s also possible that they explore a reunion with versatile Eduardo Nunez.
- The Orioles have historically been willing to wait out the free-agent market in search of bargains late in the winter, but they’ll have more company than usual in that regard this year, writes Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun. Baltimore GM Dan Duquette and his staff have had varying degrees of success in that regard, striking gold with a February signing of Nelson Cruz but also issuing regrettable deals to Yovani Gallardo and Ubaldo Jimenez. This time around, the Orioles will be looking to fill multiple spots in their rotation in addition to a left-handed bat. But, with just a handful of the top MLB free agents having agreed to deals, Baltimore’s typically patient approach may not be as fruitful as it has in the past.
- Though they’ve explored various trade scenarios, the Twins are likelier to address their rotation on the free-agent market, MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger writes in his latest Twins Inbox piece. Minnesota has a blank payroll slate beyond the 2019 season, and Bollinger suggests that the front office would rather use those financial resources than deplete the farm system in order to add to the rotation. The Twins have been prominently mentioned as a possible landing spot for Yu Darvish, though it stands to reason that they’ve also likely looked into Jake Arrieta, Alex Cobb and Lance Lynn as well.
Wonder who’s crying now?
What?
Haha yah I wanna know too.
Two hearts born to run.
Can I have some of what you’re smoking?
Yes, have some.
Lol nice
A Castellanos trade for rebuilding tigers seems sensible, quite honestly. His perceived value is and has always been higher than his reality. If marketed as a young, controllable, power hitting third baseman, he could bring back quite a return from a gullible team.
Mets or Rangers I could see as a fit. Move Gallo to third and let Castellanos play arguably the easiest position on the field.
Left field ?
Beltre still exists
Beltre using a walker is still better than most
I see him as a good fit in Atlanta. Though the glove isn’t there he could man 3rd until Riley is ready, freeing up carmago for the utility role. Slide him to the OF once Riley gets the call.
Unsure of how the Detroit farm system looks but Atlanta has an abundance of arms and lack of position players on the way.
Any team interested in Castellanos has nothing to worry about because Al Avila is the worst GM currently in MLB (maybe slightly better than Miami). Avila will trade Cast for any teams 38th best prospect.
If folks on this site are to believed, every GM is tired for WURST GM EVAR
Just say NO to Eduardo Nunez. Defensively he is still a disaster. They need to bit the bullet and re-sign Todd Frazier to a 2 year/$20MM total +/- deal. They can transition Frazier to DH and backup 3B & 1B the 2nd year if necessary. Great clubhouse guy and solid player.
You think he is going to sign that deal? Good luck.
Yea put Frazier at DH and do what with Stanton
Stanton plays in the OF
In 2019 Gardner is gone. He’s a FA after this season that leaves: Judge, Hicks & Stanton as the everyday OF’ers.
I don’t see the Yanks signing either Frazier or Nunez, they will trade for a utility man if needed. I think they would be fine until the deadline with Torreyes, Andujar, Torres, Wade, and Estrada.
As of right now you need a place for Frazier Ellsbury still on team and Florial close too so future is coveref
Considering all the power already, yanks can use wade as the second baseman as he’s good defensively
Yankees have 2 open 40 man roster spots. As for Frazier, Todd Frazier is a 3rd baseman. I doubt the Yankees are going to go with basically an inexperienced infield on OD with the exception of Didi. Bird, Torres, Andujar, Wade or even Estrada or Florial aren’t experienced enough to turn 3/4ths of the infield over to them on OD. Not going to happen, IMO.
Florial is an outfielder.
Everyone says there is no place for C Frazier. I get that this year (except in case of injury), but what about next year when Gardy is gone? Wouldn’t it be better to hang onto him?
They will not play Stanton and Judge in the OF at the same time on a regular basis. Cashman already said Judge and Stanton will alternate between Right and DH.
Fangraphs has the projected WAR of second and third for the young Yanks as the same as the projected WAR for Castro and Headley with the Yanks saving over 20 million. Unless Cashman can make a better deal for an upgrade they really don’t need anybody.
Florial is not close. 2.5+ years away.
He is an outfielder.
Dangerously close to covfefe
Nunez is fine in the field as long as you don’t put him at SS or CF, which are positions that most teams would want a regular starter at anyway. Keep him at 2B, 3B, and even an occasional corner OF spot and let his bat do the talking. He could be one of the best super-utility guys in the league if used correctly.
Nunez career fielding % at SS is ..956 he’s even worse at 3B with a .943 career fielding average even at 2nd base it’s .971 besides 2B is going to be Torres spot at some point in 2018. Like I said just say NO to Nunez he’s terrible defensively.
The Yanks
and Cards could match up in a trade for Gyrko. Maybe some of the Yankees excess BP help or prospects.
Frazier won’t sign a deal for 2/20. He will get much more than that. Worst case, he could get a 1 year deal at $15M+ from someone if he wanted to take a shorter term to rebuild more value. But no way he takes 2/20.
Frazier is not a good fit this year for the Yanks, he wants a multi year contract. I think the Yanks trade for Drury and Corbin!
Just say NO to Eduardo Nunez.
Just say NO to Eduardo Nunez.
Just say NO to Eduardo Nunez.
Please no Nunez.
Who are these people thinking the Yankees would commit $20-$3om to Eduardo Nunez? Do they not remember the Eduardo Nunez era in New York?
Has anyone suggested that Nunes could get that on the open market? I don’t think so.
Why do they need defense when they will be up by 10 runs every game?
They will be up by ten runs every game? Really? We shall see. I doubt it.
They had lot of blow outs last go to baseball reference and look it up
Lol Todd Frazier is horrible no
Duquette is a lame duck GM who tried to leave for Toronto a few years ago. Think he cares about the O’s long term future? No way. This offseason has been embarrassing to date.
You cannot blame gm due to the owners views on things
I’m crying, I like Nunez
I like the idea of Castellanos in a Braves uniform and the Orioles don’t need to wait on a left handed bat a reunion with Markakis could happen right now and it wouldn’t take much to make it happen
Do you think the o’s would really take on markakis’s contract?
If they took back another larger contract back, then maybe. Perhaps Darren O’Day just off the top of my head.
There is also the possibility that Atlanta could entice Baltimore into dealing for Markakis if Atlanta attached a prospect.
All sorts of possibilities exist.
Made it sound like the Darren O’Day contract is bad when it isn’t. He was pretty close to his normal self last season and judging how setup reliever contracts have been of late? 9m each over 2018 and 19 isn’t out of whack.
Why the orioles would want to swap out one of the more solid setup relievers over the last half dozen years for a 34YO RF controllable for just 1 season is beyond me.
I want to see Markakis back in Bmore. He needs to retire as an Oriole
Thats fine. The braves can eat most his salary for a minimal return or the orioles can take his contract and some legit prospects for doing so to make that happen.
Otherwise he wont retire an Oriole.
GM AA has a very good game plan and things are unfolding well. NC will wish he stuck around for the fireworks a few years from now. exciting times in the D….stay tuned!
Agree to disagree on AA having a “good” game plan. I’m well aware that Ian Kinsler had a down year and is heading towards the wrong side of 30, but if getting Anaheim’s 20th best prospect is the best that you can get for Kinsler then you aren’t trying, and/or are a terrible GM. The Verlander crop of prospects was decent, but what we got for Upton, JD, and the Wilson/Alex Avila trades were disappointing.
No one except the Angels wanted Ian Kinsler. The Tigers must reduce salary. I really don’t understand what you expect from an old player for one year.
And if he thinks its a good idea to extend Castellanos he’s mistaken. Castellanos is a decent hitter, but he’s pure DH material (which makes him just ok) and that position is already going to be filled with Martinez and then Cabrera for the foreseeable future. This team needs to learn that all slugging/no defense just doesn’t work.
The JD Martinez trade was truly awful and made well before the deadline – why rush to accept such a mediocre return? Verlander return was decent. same for Wilson/Avila. Understand he “got something” for Upton but have to believe there was more on the table to be had. His free agent signings have been horrible.
No GM got more for an OF at the deadline than what Avila got for JD. It was just not a commodity with much demand. If Bruce had been moved to the DBacks, because he had waited, Avila would have gotten even less.
Well, Avila technically set the market for outfielders at the deadline when he traded JD, so that would explain why no GM got more for an OF than Avila, since JD headlined that list. So yes, still a terrible trade.
Yankees getting a one-year second or third baseman makes a lot of sense. Kendrick, Utley, Phillips, Hardy,
Still think an Ellsbury for Tulowitzki trade would work well for both teams if Ellsbury would agree.
It’s a testament to the illogical state of the financial aspect of the game when a defensively-challenged player who hits about league average declines an extension with two years left of team control. It didn’t even make sense for Det to offer him an extension unless he was targeted for DH and we know who has that job. Castellanos should be listening to the Angel of Realism on his right shoulder instead of the Demon of Wishful Thinking on his Left.
Well put
This is a hilarious and bold statement when absolutely no information regarding what the terms of the extension might have been are provided.
Neither “hilarious” or “bold”, just logical. There’s a very predictable formula for most salaries. Note the “projected arbitration salary” for Castellanos, which would have been similar to his extension offer. The only unknown would be the years and any incentives.
I think you’re looking at the situation in a one dimensional.manner. Castellanos bet on himself and is in a better situation.
a) We can’t say whether or not he made a wise choice to decline an extension without knowing the terms extended to him.
b) He had two back-to-back years in which he improved offensively, at least with hr and rbis, and improved his WAR, from negative to two seasons at a +1.8 and +1.7. Not great but it’s basically a 2 WAR improvement over any other year in his short career,
c) While the way we evaluate players has improved due to advance metrics, arbitrators still love and value the counting stats like HRS, hits and rbis and non-counting stats like BAT avg still hold weight,. In those categories he had career years in both 2016 and 2017,
d) Maybe he saw the writing on the wall and didn’t want to commit past the 2 years of team control to an organization that seemed destined to a rebuild? Just the way we can determine when a team is in need of an overhaul, so do players and the team they’ve built around them. The Tigers lost 92 games at the end of 2015. Not hard to imagine what the next two years would lead to,
e) While he’s a flawed player, especially with his glove, he is still among the better bats at 3B (top 15). He might be league average when compared among all position players but he’s better than the league average 3B offensively, looking past his OBP.
f) In terms of market value, Castellanos figures to be a FA following the 2019 season. By then Machado and Donaldson would have signed their deals and off the market. Frazier will probably sign at least a 3 year deal imo. Beltre will probably be retired by then. All the other top 3b (Longoria, Franco, Turner, Bryant, Lamb, Seager, Suarez, Shaw, Ramirez, Bregman, Gallo and Y. Sanchez) will still be under their respective teams control. The top 3b FA in winter of 2019 will be Boras clients, Arenado and Rendon., and Castellanos. Comparatively, he’s not in their class, However, for bargain shoppers, Castellanos could be a nice fit especially if he can repeat his 2017 performance for the next 2 years.
Factoring in those variable I think Cast may have bet wisely when he turned down the extension,
The salary is predictable, based his arbitration value, but no team is going to sign him long term until he hits enough to offset his defensive liability, unless he agrees to DH. In Detroit’s case, they may have been targeting him for post-Cabrera DH when they finally have a MLB team, so it may have been 5-6 yrs at 7mil. Look at Leonys Martin, who would be out of baseball were it not for his glove. Given his 2017 peripherals, Castellanos should progress, but if he regresses in that poorer lineup, he’s left with no value at all.
Not sure why you used Leonys, a glove first CF, to compare to Castellanos, a bat first 3b,
Either way, among 3b, Cast ranked top 15 in many categories such as wRC, wOBA, HRS, ISO and Slugging. Getting that or better from a 3B is still a valuable commodity.
My point with Martin is that a player has better job security if he’s a good glove than if he’s a D liability who can hit at the level of Castellanos, who would find it difficult to get back into any MLB roster if he regresses at the plate. Martin was an example, not a comparison.
Castellanos is not a third baseman; he’s a DH playing out of position.
“The Tigers pursued an extension with outfielder Nicholas Castellanos “to no avail” following the 2017 season”
Not a Tigers fan but curious why you describe Castellanos as an outfielder? I see that ~90% of his career appearances have been at 3B. No apparent switch to OF last year either. Doesn’t mean that he’s any good at 3B, but it does appear that the team continued to play him there. So, what do you know that I don’t?
Castellanos became an OF when Det got 3B Candelario from the Cubs for Avila and Wilson, but he’s not really much of an OF OR a 3B and would be a career minor leaguer were it not for the DH.
Thanks, but I’m still confused.
“Castellanos . . . would be a career minor leaguer were it not for the DH.”
He has played a total of 16 games at DH in his career, 7 of them last year. How would he be out of a job without the DH? He may be less than worthless defensively but the Tigers continue sending him out there with a glove.
Think maybe he means Miggy and Vmart would be playing the field if there wasn’t a dh option. But doubt it just seems to be trollin
V-Mart would have been out of MLB a few yrs ago and Cabrera would be playing about 100 games/yr. were it not for the DH. Castellanos would be playing -0- games in MLB. Teams will sign a poor defensive player who can hit a little with the hope that they’ll improve and if they don’t, there’s always the DH option, especially when they get older and slower. Det had enough offense to cover for a poor glove at 3B but he’s now a liability without the hitters they just traded, unless of course, he has a huge breakout in 2018.
Castellanos turning down an extension surprises me a bit. If I’m Detroit, he is headed elsewhere and soon. I used to be on the fence about trading him.
I think the Yanks will sign a Darwin Barney type to a NG free agent minors Deal, and let he and Wade fight it out in spring training
It’s funny how the Tigers can payroll dump and rebuild and no one gets upset. But when the Marlins do it, everyone is upset about the same thing.
The Tigers didn’t have one of the youngest and best outfields in all of baseball.
The Tigers rebuild is years overdue where as Miami had a team filled with young talent. They could have moved Stanton and still continued growing.
They didn’t trade their best player to the Yankees. If they had traded Stanton to St. Louis or San Francisco nobody would have complained about it.
They DID have a deal to trade Stanton :
#1 – Cardinals
#2 – Giants
#3 – Dodgers
….the Yankees were the #4 option.
No one else appears to have even tried.
They didn’t have a “deal,” they just talked trades! Big difference!
Correct. Technically a deal is a signed agreement.
The deals that the Marlins were offered (but not signed; obviously) were in-place with – #1, #2, & #3.
Yankees proposal was the best … after the 3 established ‘deals’ were rejected by one or all of the parties.
That would not be “talk” that’s a formal deals on the table.
“Talk” was done on the 3 … rejection came AFTER the deals were formulated..
Again – no one else even tried.
The ALL turned around and quietly walked away.
“Can’t hit if you don’t Swing”
Great job, Cashman !
@Ichiro51….Did you go by another name and make the same ridiculous statement last week? You are aware that most sports franchises have to tear down and rebuild at least once every decade or so? Even the storied Yankees just completed a successful rebuild “on the fly” that lasted a few years. What separates the Marlins is that they are currently on their 5th rebuild in the past 20 years or so and have chosen to do them at the most inopportune times, like after winning a WS or building a heavily tax payer funded ballpark. They have a history of screwing over their fan base and looking like a joke to the rest of the baseball world. The criticism is highly deserved and I don’t know how anyone who isn’t a child or familiar with their history can root for them. I don’t know why this is so difficult for you to understand.
True, “most” do, but it’s important to consider the results of those teams that choose to rely on a more comprehensive system staffed by competent professionals, whether it’s NE in the NFL or the Cards in MLB. The product or service a company markets is irrelevant to the importance of good management in every department. Sports management is dominated by cronyism between ex-players and financed by owners in vicarious pursuit of fanciful, childhood dreams. Any other organization would cease to exist if they intentionally and periodically marketed a substandard product, while assuring their customers that acceptable quality would be realized in 3-5 years.
Ok. So what is the excuse in San Diego? Seems like they have been in a perpetual “rebuild” for over 25 years !
Tigers moved nc to right field at trade deadline after acquiring candelaria
The Yankees should put a package together for Lamb & Corbin. Lamb’s lefty power plays perfectly at Yankee Stadium. It would cost them a lot but the team would be set for a 2018 WS run.
I think that package will be more than the Yankees are willing to give up
A package of C Frazier Andujar Adams and Heller might do it.
I’m herding Frazier 2/$2mil?
Trading for Lamb for prospects?
Let me tell you guys something.. in order for you to make it to majors you must hit the baseball and that is exactly what nuñez can do, now he’s defense is not as bad as people think, so when we have the lead all we have to do is bring in a better defensive player and at the end we would be just fine and we will be champs.
Nunez is a league average bat at best who just came off a career half season in Boston. He’s more than likely going to be an awful signing
People use the term “league average” way too losely. For the past two years “league average” has been about .255/.323/.420 w/ a .750 OPS. And that number is probably even lower amond middle infielders and C. Nunez has put together a slash line of ,299/,332./.445 and an OPS of .778. He’s above average, at least with his bat. His flexibility mitigates some short-comings with the glove. As long as he’s not demanding a multi-year deal then he will be an asset to the Yanks.
Everyone i know in Detroit says Castellanos’ grandparents lived near and were friends with Dennis Haskins aka Mr. Belding from Saved by the Bell. Is that true? Over a dozen different people said that.
AGAIN…..i’ll believe it when i see it from the Twins. They have always been prone to dumpster diving and signing washed up, injured or old guys but never young starters in their prime who are any good.
No to Frazier! Can’t hit! No to Nunez! Can’t field! Go worth youngsters!
Cashman The Goat