MLB Chicago Cubs

Chicago Cubs’ Welington Castillo Could Be A Great Value Add On Trade Market

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By @DrewJenkins77

Welington Castillo Chicago Cubs

Matt Marton- USA TODAY Sports

The Chicago Cubs have had a busy offseason, and that included revamping their catcher corps. The team went out and acquired Miguel Montero from the Arizona Diamondbacks and also added veteran David Ross on a two-year deal. With the acquisitions of these two catchers, the Cubs left incumbent starter Welington Castillo on the outside looking in for a roster spot.

At this point, Castillo is a likely trade candidate, and he could turn out to be a surprisingly nice value add to any team that acquires him.

Hitting-wise, Castillo has been an underrated contributor. Since first seeing significant big league time in 2012, he has hit .257/.326/.398 with wRC+ numbers of 102, 107 and 91 respectively. Essentially, he has been an average or slightly above-average hitter since breaking into the league. But, when you consider that the league average catcher has posted wRC+ figures of 95, 92 and 93 in the last three years respectively, Castillo’s hitting looks even better.

His bat did slip a bit in 2014, as he hit just .237/.296/.389 with a 91 wRC+. That was pretty realistic too, as Castillo’s .348 and .347 BABIPs from 2012 and 2013 were unsustainable. When his BABIP slipped to a more reasonable .288, his overall batting slipped. Still, Castillo hit like a league-average catcher, and that makes him valuable enough on the offensive side of things.

Plus, one more positive sign is that his .153 ISO was higher than the .124 mark he had in 2013, and is right on par with his .153 mark from 2012 despite the fact that he hit for a lower average. If he can find a way to reach his previous levels of contact, Castillo could actually hit for more power than ever before.

While he is a solid hitter, it is really Castillo’s defense that is his calling card. His career 31 percent caught stealing rate is slightly above average, and it has continually improved since he cracked the big leagues. He has also allowed just 19 passed balls in his career, which is a very respectable number.

More advanced metrics also back up these parts of Castillo’s defense. rSB, which indicates the amount of runs saved by catchers above average on potential stolen bases, ranks Castillo fourth since 2012 at 10 runs above average. RPP, which ranks catchers based on their ability to block balls, has Castillo at 11th in the league since 2012 at 5.2 runs above average.

Since 2012, Castillo has ranked as the fourth-best defensive catcher in baseball according to Fangraphs’ Def stat, which pegs him as having saved 34.8 runs more than the league-average catcher in that time. That is all the more impressive when you consider that the three guys ahead of him have all played somewhere between 360 and 390 games, whereas he has only played in 275.

Defensive runs saved is even more kind to Castillo, ranking him as the third-best defensive catcher since 2012 thanks to his 26 runs saved above average.

Admittedly, one big negative about Castillo’s defense is his pitch framing. According to MLB StatCorner, Castillo ranked as the second-worst pitch framer in baseball in 2014 and the third-worst in 2013. Baseball Prospectus’ rankings are a bit more kind to him, but they still rank him as a below-average pitch framer. That certainly makes his total defensive package less appealing, but he is still a solid defender when you put everything together.

Overall, Castillo has been worth 3.3 and 2.2 fWAR in the past two seasons respectively since taking over as a semi-regular for the Cubs. He also has only played in 113 and 110 games in these two seasons, so a bit more playing time would make him even better.

His combined 5.5 fWAR over the last two campaigns ties him for ninth in baseball among catchers, above the likes of Brian McCann, Carlos Ruiz and Jarrod Saltalamacchia. That is all the more impressive when you realize that Castillo is tied for fewest games played among the top 10 ranking catchers.

Also beneficial to a team trying to acquire Castillo is that he is only hitting his first year of arbitration. He is controllable for three more years, and unless he is to experience a precipitous decline, he will produce excess value for each of those three years.

Of course, a trade is only as good as the return you give up, but teams looking to deal for Castillo will have a good amount of leverage in talks with the Cubs. After the team added Montero and Ross this offseason, the only way that Castillo would gain a roster spot is if one of the two got injured or if the Cubs carried three backstops, which is very rare for a team to do. With Castillo out of options, the Cubs are in a position where they almost have to trade him.

Castillo is one of, if not the most underrated catcher in baseball. He is capable of being a league-average hitter while playing solid defense, and at 27-years-old, he is still in his prime years and there could be even more to come. Clearly, he would be a great addition to any team in need of a catcher, and whichever team acquires him will likely end up with one of the best steals in the offseason.

Drew Jenkins is an MLB writer and Sabermetrics Columnist for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @DrewJenkins77, “Like” him on Facebook, add him to your network on Google, or contact him at [email protected]

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