Ray’s Ramblings: Misplaced Love

I received a call last night on The Drive on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius210, XM87, 7 PM EDT) from a fella that was over the moon for Welington Castillo. This morning I received a question from @bjc10 about Castillo. It was very simple: Welington Castillo or Travis d’Arnaud? As a follow up, @FantBBJunky offered his opinion that he favored Castillo because he has a slightly better home ballpark. Here is why I think it’s clearly d’Arnaud over Castillo.

Simply – people are completely missing out on who Castillo really is.

Castillo is a righty swinger who turns 29 in April.

For 3-straight seasons he’s put up between 342 and 380 at-bats.

He’s seen his homer total increase 3-straight years up to a career best 19 last season. He also produced his best RBI total (57) and runs scored mark (42) last season.

Now the reality check.

Castillo is a .251 career hitter. However, he’s hit a mere .237 over his last 220 games the past two seasons.

Castillo owns a 19.6 percent line drive rate for his career. League average.

Castillo owns a .308 BABIP for his career. League average.

Castillo owns a 1.12 GB/FB ratio for his career. League average.

The last two seasons he’s posted identically terrible OBP marks of .296.

Castillo owns a .414 career SLG. The league average mark since his career began is .409.  

Castillo can’t hit righties with a decidedly terrible .239/.303/.395 career slash line.

So why does anyone think he’s anything other than a second catcher option in mixed leagues?

Ah, it’s the homers of course. Let’s look into that.

Last season Castillo hit 19 homers. Only three other catchers hit more: Brian McCann 26, Russell Martin 23, Salvador Perez 21.

I get that’s exciting. The problem is that Castillo isn’t a 19 homer guy unless he’s racking up 500 at-bats (remember he has never had 400 before). Why is that?

Heading into last season Castillo, over the course of 1,069 plate appearances, owned a 10.2 percent HR/F ratio on a 37 percent fly ball rate. Both of those numbers are basically league average. What were the numbers last season? He upped his fly ball rate a tad to 39 percent but it was the massive surge in his HR/FB ratio that really made the difference as it exploded to 18.8 percent. That’s a gain of eighty percent from his career level. Folks, that just doesn’t happen. Ever. It’s also notable that in the previous five seasons Castillo never posted a mark above 12.2 percent. His HR/FB ratio is going to regress, period. Unless he gets those 500 at-bats he’s not hitting 20 homers.

Two final points.

First, he hit 11 home runs over 35 games in June and July. Those 11 homers came in a mere 112 at-bats. That’s a homer every 10.2 at-bats, an insane mark. For his career the rate is one every 28.4 at-bats.

Castillo hit 12 homers in just 55 games in the second half over 190 at-bats. That’s a homer every 4.6 games and 15.8 at-bats. We just saw that his career mark is one homer every 28.4 at-bats and the mark for games is one every 8.6.

Castillo just isn’t that surger we saw in the second half when he was off his rocker good.

d’Arnaud is a more talented player.

He’s a better hitter.

He’s a more complete hitter.

Period.

d’Arnaud hit .031 points higher.

d’Arnaud had an OBP that was .044 points better.

d’Arnaud had a SLG that was .032 points higher.

d’Arnaud, even last year, was better per plate appearance than Castillo.

If we give both men 378 plate appearances, the total of Castillo last season, here are the numbers each men would reach (d’Arnaud only had 268 PAs last season).

As I said, d’Arnaud is just better.

d’Arnaud is the easy choice between the two backstops. Let’s just hope he can stay healthy in 2016.

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).