Nick Castellanos brings passion and talent to the Cincinnati Reds

After speculation and rumors all winter, the Cincinnati Reds made it official on Monday by signing Nick Castellanos to a four-year, $64M contract.

Although he spent the second half of the 2019 season with the Chicago Cubs, Nick Castellanos has never been on a National League team for a full season. That will change this coming season when he steps onto the field at Great American Ballpark for the first time in a Cincinnati Reds jersey.

Having spent five-plus years with the Detroit Tigers in the American League, Castellanos is a bit of an unfamiliar face. Reds fans will likely recall his insane breakout with the Cubs last season, but maybe not his three-straight 20 home run seasons while with Detroit.

Even before that, Castellanos was one of the most highly touted prospects in baseball. While the 2012 Tigers were on their way to win a pennant, Castellanos was tearing it up in the Florida State League. He batted .405 with the Lakeland Flying Tigers, good enough to be ranked the No. 10 prospect in baseball that season.

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Castellanos was drafted 44th overall by the Tigers out of high school. The 2010 High School All-American was picked later than expected in the draft, but showed a little bit of what he could do, hitting .333 with a .830 OPS in seven games of rookie league ball that summer.

Even at age 19, Castellanos was a pure hitter and had a natural ability according to Baseball Prospectus, which caused him to quickly advance through the minors. Over three seasons, the he grew physically, allowing him to develop his power. Castellanos reached Triple-A by age 21, a whopping six years younger than the average age of players in the International League.

Nick Castellanos was drafted as a third baseman and had played there his entire life. Before the 2013 season, it became apparent that he would be ready to debut in Detroit by the end of the year, if not earlier. There was just one problem: reigning MVP Miguel Cabrera was patrolling the hot corner in Detroit (he would go on to win another that November).

The organization did not want to ask the cornerstone player of a pennant winning team to change positions—so they did the only thing they could do—move Castellanos to a corner outfield spot. He stayed there for his entire time in Toledo and through his call-up that September.

Castellanos’ debut was nothing special—a seventh inning pinch-hit fly ball followed by a ninth inning grounder in a 4-0 loss to the Indians—and the rest of his September was rather mundane—5 singles in 18 at-bats for a nice .278/.278/.278 slash line on the year.

Castellanos’ 2014 season was more or less the same as his 2013; pretty good, but nothing special. A 96 OPS+ was good enough for eighth in Rookie of the Year voting, likely a throwaway vote from someone not knowing who else to put after Jose Abreu.

Over the next few seasons, Nick Castellanos, still one of the youngest players in Major League Baseball, improved. Despite playing with Comerica Park’s deep outfield, the power began to come. The smooth swinging third baseman drafted back in 2010 was finally starting to show his chops.

By 2016, Castellanos started to figure things out. He hit 25 doubles and 18 home runs, which wasn’t too bad for a 24-year-old who was still trying to learn how to play defense. Around this time, the Tigers moved Castellanos back to third and then to the outfield again.

Castellanos joined the Tigers at the wrong time. The first year after he was drafted, the Tigers won four straight AL Central titles. Castellanos was on the team for one of those runs. Unfortunately, Detroit was was swept by the Baltimore Orioles in the ALDS. The year before he debuted, the Tigers played in the World Series.

Nick Castellanos also missed out on getting to play a full season with back-to-back-to-back MVPs in Justin Verlander and Miguel Cabrera in 2011-13. Right after Castellanos’ debut, the team’s contention window started to close.

As the Tigers got worse, Castellanos got better. The 2017 Tigers were 64-98, their worst record since the historic 43-win 2003 season. He watched the essential players of earlier in the decade leave and watched the regression of Cabrera.

Castellanos watched Detroit’s manager be fired. He also had the best season of his career. That year, Castellanos hit 26 home runs with 101 RBI, 14% of the team’s total runs scored. His ten triples also led the league—a product of his power and a 420 foot centerfield wall.

In 2018, Castellanos built on top of his 2017 campaign. He had fewer home runs and RBIs, but the rest of his numbers shot up—a 26 point jump in batting average, 10 more doubles and a 128 OPS+ are just pieces of the puzzle. After several seasons of playing with All-Stars and MVPs at the beginning of his career, Castellanos was the only player on the Tigers with an OPS over 100.

After watching everyone he has ever played professional baseball with get traded or leave in free agency, Castellanos was forced to play on one of the worst teams in history. Perhaps the thought of getting traded at the deadline is what kept him going, because the top story line at the beginning of the 2019 season was where the pending free agent would be playing in July.

Like he had been doing the three years prior, Castellanos made the best of his situation. Through July, he hit 11 home runs in 100 games, leading the team. Unfortunately for Nick Castellanos, one player doesn’t make the team a postseason contender.

Castellanos was dealt to the Chicago Cubs before the 2019 July trade deadline. Castellanos’ debut for the Cubs went slightly better than his debut for the Tigers. This time, Castellanos had one single in three at-bats, the only thing that kept the Cubs from being no-hit by the Cardinals in an 8-0 slaughter.

Castellanos did not get off to a great start, but it didn’t take him long to change that. Finding hope in a new team with life and potential for the playoffs, Castellanos had one of the best hot streaks in baseball. In August alone, he hit 11 home runs in a Cubs uniform (tying the number he hit all season with the Tigers) and helped them win 16 games that month.

Although Castellanos slowed down in September, he still played his heart out. Castellanos was playing some of the best baseball he had in his entire life and for the first time in his major league career, he was playing for something.

In post-game interviews, Castellanos beamed talking about how much he loved his teammates, the city and the fans. After five years of the worst baseball this decade, he was finally somewhere that wanted to compete.

When Castellanos was asked what it is like to play for the Cubs, he famously replied “everyday feels like Opening Day”. Well, Nick, welcome to the Cincinnati Reds, home of the best Opening Day in the country. See you in March.