Were the Miami Marlins right not to sign Nick Castellanos?

This is something that I covered before, but the idea that the Miami Marlins should’ve signed Nick Castellanos allegedly led to Derek Jeter leaving the team. Castellanos himself thought that he was signing with The Fish, until he wasn’t offered a contract and signed with the Philadelphia Phillies instead. It was a frustrating development for Miami Marlins fans, but let’s see if it actually turned out to be the right decision.

Nick Castellanos not signing with the Miami Marlins frustrated a lot of fans.

Nick Castellanos is from Hialeah, FL and was excited about the possibility of playing for what was basically his hometown team. A homecoming for Castellanos seemed very exciting for the fans as well, with Castellanos taking over as a much needed middle of the order bat. Nick Castellanos is a career .277/.328/.482 hitter who batted a phenomenal .309/.362/.576 last season for the Cincinnati Reds, with 34 home runs and 100 RBI.

If we’re going to be really honest, Nick Castellanos was never really a consistently productive middle of the order bat. 2021 was actually the first time that he even hit 30 or more home runs. That’s not necessarily a bad thing of course, but one has to wonder about him being a true middle of the order bat. Let’s take a further look..

A quick glance at Nick Castellanos’s StatCast profile reveals that he doesn’t have impressive Exit Velocities, and that contact is more of a strength for him than power. The more alarming fact is that his percentile rankings for power are pretty lackluster: 37% for Hard Hit%, 45% for average Exit Velocity and 67% for max Exit Velocity. None of that really stands out or jumps off the page.

What are projections for Nick Castellanos going forward? Zips expects him to bat .273/.327/.488 next season and .271/.326/.478 in 2024. Did I mention his batting line this season? .244/.302/.410. I think that we can safely say that Castellanos is not exactly the middle of the order bat that we need.

Nick Castellanos is a good player and would’ve helped the Miami Marlins, but he’s also not the middle of the order bat that we need. He also would most likely end up becoming overpaid and just not very useful in the long run. I also should add that he’s not known for being good defensively, and that means that he would either cost us runs or end up clogging up the DH spot, and teams don’t typically give designated hitters large contracts. I think that we made the right decision to not sign him.