The Rangers have signed right-hander Diego Castillo to a minor league contract, according to Castillo’s player page on MLB.com. The details of the the deal aren’t clear, but presumably include an invite to big league Spring Training.
Castillo, 30 next month, made his big league debut with the Rays back in 2018. Early in his career Castillo found success as a solid middle reliever for Tampa, with a 3.30 ERA and 3.53 FIP in 125 1/3 innings across 108 appearances (including 17 appearances as an opener). Castillo owned a solid 28.5% strikeout rate against a walk rate of 8.6% with an impressive 51.8% groundball rate. Among all relievers with at least 100 innings of work across the 2018-19 seasons, only Luke Jackson, Jace Fry and Ryan Pressly struck out more batters while posting a groundball rate north of 50%.
Impressive as the first two seasons of his career already were, Castillo found another gear headed into the shortened 2020 season when he posted a sterling 1.66 ERA across 21 2/3 innings of work with a whopping 60.4% groundball rate. Castillo’s success during the shortened seasons saw him establish himself as a quality set-up option at the back of the Rays bullpen, resulting in the club dealing him to the Mariners the following summer. From 2020-22, Castillo posted a 2.95 ERA (134 ERA+) despite an elevated 3.84 FIP thanks to a 27.8% strikeout rate and a 49.7% groundball rate.
Unfortunately, things came off the rails for Castillo entering the 2023 season as the righty struggled to a 6.23 ERA across 8 2/3 innings of work for Seattle early in the year, resulting in the club outrighting Castillo off the roster in early May. The right-hander’s struggles continued in the minors throughout the year, as Castillo posted an ERA of 5.13 across 47 1/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level across the remainder of the season. Castillo became a minor league free agent back in October, giving the Rangers the opportunity to pick him up on a non-roster deal.
Brutal as Castillo’s performance was in 2023, his addition could provide a significant boost to the Rangers if he’s able to re-establish himself as a quality set-up arm or even as a solid middle reliever. Entering the 2023 season, Castillo sported a career 3.12 ERA and 3.69 FIP. Meanwhile, the Rangers had one of the worst relief corps in the entire league last season, even before the departures of Aroldis Chapman, Will Smith, and Chris Stratton in free agency.
While Jose Leclerc is a strong back-end option and the likes of Kirby Yates and Brock Burke could be valuable pieces, Texas will need contributions from others outside of that trio to improve upon their 2023 bullpen ERA of 4.77. A rebound for Castillo would go a long way to achieving that goal, but for now the right-hander figures to enter the spring with competing for a spot in the club’s bullpen with the likes of Grant Anderson and Jake Latz.
Just a thought, why not use his picture?
It’s spelled pitcher. That’s the guy who throws the ball, I think.
Castillo will probably love the BBQ buffets in Texas. I have a feeling he’s never met a buffet he didn’t like.
I don’t think he travels well. He would show up to spring looking trim and clearly put work in the offseason. Then by mid May he’s back to being Da Big Boss
When he’s right, he has a wicked sinker.
We have great BBQ joints here in Texas, but I don’t believe there are any buffets.
BBQ is expensive because it’s expensive to make. I don’t see a way a buffet could ever be viable.
where are all these great BBQ places at? I live in Dallas and haven’t found one I’d consider excellent BBQ. it’s all been avg with different sauces. I don’t use the sauces. I want to taste great meat without having to cover it in sauce. who smokes the best tasting meat in Dallas? good BBQ should be able to be eaten with only some salt, pepper and pickle and onion.
Stay away from the chains, especially Dickey’s. If you don’t see a big pile of wood behind the building, then don’t bother stopping.
Name a couple of the great BBQ joints you know of.
Cattleack, Slow Bone and Heim are excellent barbecue choices in or very near Dallas.
As for the article, Sborz is way ahead of Burke and probably Yates in the Rangers bullpen pecking order. As a minor league contract dart throw no objection to seeing if Castillo could be useful, but I would sure like someone like Stephenson or Hicks as much better bets to be part of the 7th through ninth inning mix
Main Street BBQ in Euless, TX.
Until they sign new loan papers this is about the only signing SD can afford. Ahahaha!
His picture is at the top of the article!!
They originally had Luis Castillo’s picture on the article
That is a great pick up.
Definitely could be. He is only a year removed from a string of really good seasons. At a minor league deal, virtually no risk and very high rewards. I wish the Rays made this move.
Everything was still moving last year he just couldn’t find the zone consistently. I don’t think he’s done quite yet.
christmas is over… 🙁
That’s what happens on the 26th of December
Great buy low pickup by the Rangers. There’s an unfair tendency tendency to write off the team’s success as a product of big spending, which certainly occurred. However, Chris Young also deserves enormous credit for hitting on so many of his signings in an era where returns on big free agents are diminishing.
Another great trade by the Rays. They sold high on him and it couldn’t have worked out better for them. They got JT Chargois and Austin Shenton in return, with Chargois giving them a solid reliever to replace his production until they flipped him and Xavier Edwards to the Marlins for Marcus Johnson and Santiago Suarez, who are now two of the Rays top pitching prospects (another win of a deal for them). Shenton put up a 1.007 OPS between AA and AAA last year and should help out the big club next season.
A good signing by TX. Castillo is somewhat of a roller coaster, but it wasn’t that long ago hr was an elite late gm reliever and most of his problems are in his head.
Miss Diego, but we got rid of him when the the time was right. Would love to see him bounce back with that nasty 100mph sinker again.
Ugh, good luck with that.
Deals like these are a big part of what makes spring training fun.
You know one or two are going to click. Just hope it’s your guy.
He has one bad year after being a decent reliable set up man, and all he can get is a minor league contract? I would fire my agent if I were him.
“One bad year”…When the “bad year” is your most recent, platform year, it will always put a damper on your market. But I do kind of agree that a guy like Castillo, with a better agent, could possibly command a 1-2 Million dollar, incentive laden deal.
He was really, really bad last year. Even when he got sent down to AAA he couldn’t turn it around. To me, that’s not worth a 40-man spot, let alone $1-2M guaranteed. He has to prove he can be effective again.
You don’t think his agent checked in with every single team? He was a minor-league free agent. coming off a season in which he got lit at both the major-league level and in AAA while playing for an organization renown for developing and fixing relievers.
Teams care more about what they believe a player will offer far more than what they’ve done in the past. Castillo wasn’t going to get a MLB-deal. The fact that his agent got him a minor-league deal with the reigning World Series champions is hardly a knock on him/them.
Castillo’s success during the shortened seasons saw him establish himself as a quality set-up option at the back of the Rays bullpen, resulting in the club dealing him to the Mariners the following summer.
Pitch well? Get traded.
Problem was his velo just vanished. Guy used to be hitting 100, now he barely gets mid-90s, and the decline all started that season. Rays moved him at probably the height of his value, or close to it.
Always trade relievers! That same year, hell, not even 2 days before trading for Castillo, Seattle traded away a great reliever named Kendall Graveman. It’s been a thing smaller and middle market teams do all the time because bullpen arms are usually pretty volatile in terms of performance, and you get more value from your starters and position players over the course of the season.
I feel like this guy is a prime bounce back candidate.
The big man is indeed a 100% Guaranteed Bounce Candidate!
Absolutely a smart move…NRI is a perfect bet for the Rangers
So this is their idea of bullpen help… Let’s not go out and get Hader, let’s go bargain bin shopping….do we want I repeat? I feel like this is the old rangers mentality of not spending money
Off season not over yet.
According to spotrac, the Rangers are already well over $200 million for 2024, and they haven’t finished assembling the team yet.
They might be over 200mil I just meant I thought all everyone talked about last year into this off season was getting Josh Hader or a dominate closer. I mean the off season isn’t over, but seems like if they wanted him they would have done it sooner vs later
Yankees need starting pitching desperately and have lots of money, so why haven’t they signed Blake Snell yet? There are a few teams looking for a legit outfielder who can hit, so why hasn’t Cody Bellinger signed yet? Free agent contracts take time to get hashed out. The only reasons why Ohtani and Yamamoto signed so quickly is because their markets were limited to a small handful of really high budget contending teams, and the Dodgers have near infinite amounts of money to spend.
Point taken and I get that. But I’m looking at dodgers like ohtani, the pitcher, glasnow… Like damn rangers. Although they could also be trigger shy after signing mr glass and not even getting insurance on that contract.
I know there’s time, it’s just like right now your entire rotation MIGHT come back at the deadline.. I don’t understand signing a guy who you know is hurt unless he’s got the upside of an ace which mahle doesn’t have.
Then you have max which was removed from the WS roster but decided to wait to have surgery becauseee… I’d say if there was even a 20% chance he’d need surgery, he should have done it right after the WS so he coikd start closer to spring.
The team is good on paper, but it’s going to give everyone else in the division a head start until all the broken pieces come together again. at least IMO
Smart signing. Zero risk to a 7/8th inning guy. Hey Elias are you awake?
Why do MLBTR writers continue to ignore basic tenets of English grammar? “Impressive as the first two seasons of his career already were” is NOT proper grammar. It HAS to be “AS impressive as the first two seasons of his career already were.” “As” isn’t just some optional word. Be better.
People who graduated high school wouldn’t be working as journalists. They would be lawyers. Think about it for a second…
sportskeeda.com/baseball/news-clayton-kershaw-free…
It seems the 2nd half bullpen eill be improved with starters. “Closing in”