Diamondbacks righty Miguel Castro signed a one-year deal that guaranteed him $3.25MM but also came with various incentives and a vesting option for the 2024 season. That $5MM salary was contingent on Castro reaching 60 appearances and passing an end-of-season physical, the former of which Castro quietly checked off late last month. The right-hander is now up to 65 appearances on the year, meaning that so long as he’s healthy for that end-of-year physical, he’ll be back in the fold for the D-backs next year at that $5MM price point. He’s also maxed out his appearance-based incentives for the 2023 season, adding an additional $900K to this year’s salary.
Already in his ninth Major League season despite not yet celebrating his 29th birthday, Castro was a solid member of the Arizona bullpen for the bulk of the year before a recent pair of nightmare outings sent his ERA north of 5.00. From Opening Day through Aug. 14, Castro logged a 3.86 ERA — albeit with worse-than-average strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates (20.9%, 10.2%, 41%, respectively). Castro was rocked for four earned runs in each of his next two appearances and tagged for three runs less than two weeks later; more than one-third of the runs he’s yielded this season came in a span of just 10 days.
It’s an awful stretch, but Castro’s season otherwise more or less lines up with the broader track record he put together from 2017-22: 350 innings, 3.93 ERA, 20.6% strikeout rate, 12.5% walk rate, 49.6% ground-ball rate. Both his ground-ball rate and average sinker velocity are down this season — he’s still averaging a hearty 96.8 mph on that two-seamer — but Castro is also walking batters at his lowest clip of any full big league season (9.8%).
Assuming Castro indeed passes his physical, he’ll return to a D-backs relief corps that’ll be fronted by deadline pickup Paul Sewald. Righty Kevin Ginkel and lefty Kyle Nelson have both cemented their places in the Arizona ’pen as well, and veteran Scott McGough is slated to return for the second season of his two-year deal. (Like Castro, McGough got out to a strong start but had his ERA blown up by a rough patch this summer.) Newcomer Ryan Thompson will also be looking to earn a role for the ’24 bullpen over the final few weeks of the current season.
If the D-backs want to go outside the organization to add to that group, there ought to be ample funds available to do so. Even after accounting for Castro’s $5MM salary next year, Arizona has just shy of $53MM on the books, per Roster Resource. That doesn’t include arbitration raises to notable names like Christian Walker, Zac Gallen, Sewald and Ginkel. Still, that bunch of raises will likely leave the Diamondbacks south of $90MM in guarantees, which is well shy of both this year’s $123MM payroll and their franchise-record $132MM payroll from the 2018 season.
As such, general manager Mike Hazen and his staff should have some money to work with this offseason — particularly with the organization’s regrettable commitment to Madison Bumgarner set to expire after the 2024 campaign. The D-backs owe Bumgarner $14MM for the 2024 season but are off the hook beginning in 2025. They have just $21MM on the books in 2025: a $5MM salary for Corbin Carroll and a $16MM salary for Ketel Marte.
2023 is slipping away for snakes but their future looks bright in upcoming years, tons of young talent especially on position player side.
Slipping away? So currently being in the third wild card spot doesn’t count?
They were 15 games over .500 and now they are 4. That’s the definition of slipping.
Arizona is currently tied with Cincy for the 3rd wild card and nobody expected them to make the playoffs this year anyway. Something cannot “slip away” when it was never inherently yours to begin with.
Yes but after they started the year 50-35 the expectations change. A team that plays at a 95+ win pace and now is going to finish around .500 and may or may not make the playoffs is slipping. Your analogy would be like a team was up 3 runs going into the 9th inning and blew the save but because the other team was the favorite to win before the game we don’t call it a blown save because they weren’t suppose to win anyway.
Yet they fought back from being out of the postseason picture to once again being in it. That’s the opposite of slipping away.
Just like I said earlier you are looking at the the season based on their pre season projections with their record now. If they had played the entire season at around this level between 5 games above or below .500 the that would be correct. But that’s not how the season went. Look at this team for the day after they were 50-35. The starting pitching, bullpen ERA and Whip are both up significantly. The offensive production is significantly down in batting average, slugging, and on base percentage. If you told every Arizona fan they were going to be 71-67 in third place in the wild card at the start of the season we would have all been ecstatic. But based on the level of play when they were 50-35 to 71-67 like they are today they are slipping.
Manger didn’t do his job to allow a guy with a 5 ERA and an ERA+ of 86 to get 65 appearances. Congratulations on your $5M bump next year.
Castro was better than Chafin and McGough down the stretch manager was busy fighting for wild card not worrying about a slightly overpriced guaranteed year.
How good are your playoff chances if your best hand has a 5+ ERA? LOL!
Arizona has a decent chance, because that third wild card team will be nothing but a .500 team. The Dbacks clearly have some flaws, but so do the Reds, Fish and Giants.
Let’s just give the 2023 title to Atlanta and move on to next year!
The article is wrong about Madison Bumgarner’s contract being off the books after 2024. According to Cot’s Contracts, the Dbacks deferred $5M each year in 2021, 2022 and 2023, without interest to $5M payments on November 1 of 2025, 2026 and 2027. It’s not much, but the Dbacks will still owe Bumgarner that $15M after the 2024 season.
What do the D’Backs see in Castro? All he is that I see now is a mop-up pitcher, I guess a teams need one and Castro is it. Cause set-up or closer has shown is not his talent.
When are the D’Backs going to get a legit third baseman been waiting for the last 6 years. This position is a giant crater in this lineup, I see them put Perdomo, Kennedy, Riveria, and Longoria. None of these 4 are quality, they are bench players. They have legitimate starters in the other positions, but they have to see they just are not getting the run producer at third base.
As for 3B, I’m looking forward to seeing how Gino Groover progresses through the minors.
Groover is a long ways away from the majors, so who knows whether or not he will pan out? Ivan Melendez and Deyvision De Los Santos are both at AA Amarillo. Both show promise but neither is likely to make the jump to a legitimate, consistent, run producing 3b by 2024, maybe later but not next season. Matt Chapman is probably the only Free Agent 3b available during the off-season.
Dude, all I said was that I was looking forward to seeing how he progresses.
Stop with the lectures.
Dude, I replied to desertdawg not to you. Look at the chain. Nobody’s lecturing anybody here. I can’t help you if your skin is so thin that you mistake a review of who is in the Dbacks minor league system at 3b provided to desertdawg, for a “lecture” aimed at you!?!
Dude, I’m the one who mentioned Groover, not desertdawg.
Try focusing harder.