Is There Anything (Left) To Like About Luis Castillo?
by Rob Castellano on Feb 10, 2009 10:45 AM EST
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At this point, just about all many of us feel that Luis Castillo is nothing but an albatross around the neck of the '09 Mets. If we didn't want him traded we wanted him benched or cut or worse. You'd think Orlando Hudson was Ted Williams's long lost son by the way Mets fan have yearned for him and others cried in vain for DMurph to get a shot at 2B. But am I that crazy to say I expect a significant rebound from Castillo this season?
I know, I know, he sucks and hes a little meatball and he can't do anything and most of all he absolutely isn't worth $18 million over the next 3 years. But bear with me here because I honestly feel we're going to get a good season out of him and here's why:
First of all, I think Mets fans lose sight of how consistently good Castillo was before this last season:
- This was a guy that since he started playing every day hit .290+ nine out of 10 seasons.
- In that same stretch he posted an OBP below .350 only once, averaging approximately .375.
- He has 3 Gold Gloves on his mantle
- Its actually staggering from '02 to '07 to see how consistent he was across the board. He had basically the same season 5 (good) years in a row.
- The only significant change has been the K% which has steadily improved each year from a high water mark of 17.5% in '99 down to 11.7% in '08, which is a lot.
For a more visual illustration of his remarkable consistency, here's a sampling of a few of Castillo's key offensive indicators (blue line is league average, green line is Castillo):
Now to discuss 2008:
The bad news: Fresh off the biggest contract of his career he came into camp out of shape and for the first time since becoming a regular he suffered a truly season-altering injury. His creaky knees only allowed him to play about half the season and his entire game suffered as a result. In the field, while still displaying the soft hand and good movements/instincts that won him 3 Gold Gloves, his lateral quickness was almost nonexistent. At the plate, the inconsistent playing time wreaked havoc on his timing and his confidence. Most visibly his batting average dropped to a career-low .245 and for a table-setting slap hitter that is pretty crippling to his game.
The good news: Many of his key peripherals were in line with his career trends:
| Statistic | 2008 | Career |
|---|---|---|
| OBP | .355 | .367 |
| wOBA | .315 | .329 |
| BB/K | 1.43 | .90 |
| Contact Rate | 93.5% | 94% |
| GB/FB | 3.60 | 3.40 |
You'd never know it by the constant pessimism and the booing but with a .355 OBP Castillo probably would have been adequate over the course of a full season serving as a 2 hitter. His 1.43 BB/K was also a very nice improvement over his career mark (.90 BB/K). Nearly everything else was very close to career levels.
This begs the question, why the sudden dropoff in batting average?
The Smoking Gun:
There was one outlier within the peripherals that absolutely did not line up with career trends, a VERY low BABIP. Castillo has always sported a high LD% as a result of his slap approach but in '08 he fell from a career mark of 18.4% down to 15.6%. This (as well as some bad luck) most likely caused his BABIP to plummet from a career mark of .333 (much higher than league average thanks to a high LD%) all the way down to .269 in 2008. That's over a 60 point drop which is tremendous.
Even the staunchest Castillo-haters must admit that this is a pretty surprising stat and depending on your belief about derivations in BABIP being luck-driven, pretty encouraging as well. By normalizing this trend (even a little) coupled with his steadily decreasing K rate, he has a very solid chance to bring his average back up to his career near .290 level and his OBP up from .355 closer to .370 and maybe above.
2009 and beyond:
Don't get me wrong here, the guy most likely will not live up to his contract. However, I DO think he will be a positive contributor for the '09 Mets (if the knees heal, of course). He won't give Chase a run for his money or anything but a slick fielding 2B that gets on base at a .360+ clip, switch hits, excels at the "little things" (bunting, moving runners over, etc.) and could potentially take 30+ bases is a pretty valuable commodity. I dare say he'd be a top 10 player at his position and could comparable to Hudson with less pop and more on base.
I expect Castillo to play a similar role as LoDuca in '06, setting the table and moving Jose over. In fact, he has a good chance to improve on that season as LoDuca posted a .355 OBP in '06, the exact same as Castillo's last season in a down year. Castillo also won't clog the bases: he still stole 17 bases last year (2 cs) in only 87 games proving his raw quickness is still there which might surprise Mets fans who characterized his knees as rusty old hinges ready to bust. It will also help Castillo's effectiveness to bat 2nd full time; in '08 the inconsistency of his appearances forced Randolph/Manuel to often look elsewhere. Obviously Castillo's skill set translates to the beginning of the lineup, rather than the back of the lineup where he saw a lot of time. And ideally with supposedly better conditioning, stronger legs will improve his range/defensive play.
I know I'm definitely being optimistic here and not to beat a dead horse but it is because Luis Castillo is actually a good player. It gets lost in the shuffle of all thats happened with him since the contract, the out of shape ST, the knees, the booing but hes better than people remember and he excels in a lot of categories that compliment our lineup well:
As his BP profile shows, hes better than 75-90% of baseball in K's, BB's, AVG & Speed, all things that define an excellent #2 hitter.
2009 Projections:
Obviously a lot depends on how much of his decline in BABIP was bad luck, how much was the injury and how much we can attribute to sheer declining skills at age 32. IMO a lot more of those balls are going to drop in this season, that large of a difference in BABIP had to be fluke-ish.
| System | AVG | OBP | SLG |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bill James | .281 | .362 | .344 |
| CHONE | .275 | .360 | .347 |
| Marcels | .274 | .348 | .349 |
| Me | .282 | .375 | .351 |
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I voted No
and I think most people wouldn’t agree with your line
At this point, just about all of us feel that Luis Castillo is nothing but an albatross around the neck of the ’09 Mets.
I mean I had this to say about Castillo in November, Sam stated that “[He’s] the biggest Castillo apologist here” (which a I beg to differ,) Eric has stated that Castillo still could be useful and BobbyV said that Castillo’s main skills are still there, it’s more a question of his knees a number a months back. I think we actually kind of like him here…you know in the isn’t worth his contract but isn’t as bad a coventional wisdom would say kind of way.
true
i suppose this is a more enlightened crowd, i was really compelled to put this together after listening to the radio and reading some opinions on a few other sites.
by Rob Castellano on Feb 10, 2009 10:41 AM EST up reply actions
I hear ya, it's hard not to be inspired by unanimous stupidity
By the way, good write up, I really liked the use of graphs/tables.
thanks
and as a former “once in a while AA reader” who is now a “3x daily” reader, i happened to miss your writeup in Nov. so i apologize for any overlap.
although reading it over it looks like we came to very similar conclusions about Castillo in ’08 and beyond.
by Rob Castellano on Feb 10, 2009 1:01 PM EST up reply actions
No apology needed
The more posts/articles the better. It’s important to get different viewpoints and different sets of eyes on the same data.
You can have that title.
King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president
tag, you're in
King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president
Good post
Generally agree with most of this. Would take issue with labeling him as a “a slick fielding 2B.” Let’s hope his defensive decline can be blamed on creaky knees, and let’s hope those knees aren’t as creaky anymore. Clearly, the key for him offensively is getting that LD% back up to where it usually is. He’s someone who you’d normally expect to have a higher than normal BABIP.
I’d hit him leadoff.
Nice post.
I am one of the ones that was calling for his head at the end of the season, but actually have cooled on that stance and believe that he can be a productive player this year, for all the reasons you outlined.
The issues I had last year was seemingly Castillo’s inability to hit anything hard. You mention that his BABIP was way low, the LD% was down, and the K% was down to boot. I think those numbers just serve to prove what we all could see on the field. He seemed content to just make contact, no matter where and with what authority it was hit (anyone remember the constant, agonizing 3 hoppers to SS?). Less LD directly correlates to lower BABIP, and even if a batted ball isnt “at someone” off the bat, a weakly hit ball will end up “at someone” because the fielders have plenty of time to move. Sometimes, a K could of helped as opposed to a GIDP.
So my point is that I sincerely hope that the improved health / reported conditioning will allow the guy to at least “get his hacks” and start hitting the ball with some authority.
what he said
I think Castillo’s BABIP was so low b/c he hit a shit-ton of weak groundballs last year. Whether or not he does that again or rediscovers how to hit line drives will probably be the difference between another ~.250 season or a ~.290 season. I don’t think he’ll be a bust, just b/c the expectations are so low, but I’m also not expecting him to carry us to a title either. He is what he is, around a league average 2B who had a terrible year last year, and is way overpaid.
Agreed with both of you
I don’t really see how we can expect a rebound because of a low BABIP when a low BABIP wasn’t just because of bad luck, it was actually indicative of a huge decline in skill, line drives. Which I assume has to do with his weight/knees. So it still comes back to his knees, and whether last year was just a bad year and they’ll be better this year and whether he can get in shape.
Exactly, Gina
I WOULD expect a huge rebound with the same body / skills from last year, if the BABIP was down but the LD% was static, or up, even. As is, he needed to do some serious work this offseason to get to the point where he can square the ball up more in ’09.
I am an eternal optimist, though, so I hope and believe he can.
Also
That little reverse-shift defenses started putting up against when he batted lefty him didn’t help. I don’t know how long this had been going on for while he was in the AL, but when he first came to the Mets in 2007, it didn’t seem to be nearly as heavily used by oppositions as it was in 2008. You know, bring the outfield in, bring the LF virtually all the way in to the SS-3B hole. It took a way a lot of his little poke/slap singles.
by Mark Himmelstein on Feb 10, 2009 2:14 PM EST up reply actions
Thanks for this
A lot of Mets fans seem to have some kind of crazy mental block about Castillo. He’s not the worst player in the world. Maybe it’s a repressed yearning for Edgardo Alfonzo.
Re: LD%
It’s important to note that, while his career LD% is 18.4, his 2007 mark was 14.9 and he hit .301. This figure is more characteristic of a slap approach, which gives credence to the idea that his speed-loss caused his low batting average. It’s hard to differentiate to what extent his BABIP drop was due to luck and/or speed loss. I wouldn’t count on his LD% rate to get much higher than 17 next year, but if he’s in better shape, his BA could normalize.
King of the bling come to lay down the evidence//Not George Bush, L-Millz be da president
+1
this was a factor i’d noticed as well. but i was unsure if this meant that he had been kind of lucky in ’07 to overcome the lower-than-usual LD% to achieve the .301 average and that it caught up with him in ’08 after a second consecutive season with a low LD% or if his slap approach led to the nice results in ’07 and the decreased speed led to the problems in ’08.
by Rob Castellano on Feb 10, 2009 12:54 PM EST up reply actions
The Hardball times
Had an article about a new type of xBABIP, that takes things like that into account. I don’t know if they actually have the stat up now on their player pages but I imagine that would tell you a lot more about what to expect from him next year and whether he was lucky or unlucky.
This makes sense with
What I was saying in a reply above. When he went from a guy who hit a reasonable amount of liners to a guy who was all slap-and-dash, defenses may have taken about a year to make an adjustment, especially considering he switched leagues in 2007. If you remember, Castillo basically got a pitcher’s defensive alignment, with the outfield way in (especially when he batted lefty), and the left fielder setting up almost like a linebacker if you consider third baseman and shortstop your D-line.
by Mark Himmelstein on Feb 10, 2009 2:17 PM EST up reply actions
Which poses the question:
If this is the case, can’t he make adjustments to comabt this? Like Delgado trying to go the other way agaisnt the shift, isnt a professional who is 32 supposed to be able to turn on a pitch from time to time?
Which leads us back to my original point: it seems like he was either a) content to just keep slapping the ball to the SS to NOT strikeout, or b) really was hurting, and couldnt catch up to anything and was forced to hit through the teeth of that “reverse-shift”. (Nice term, btw).
Absolutely
Completely agree with this thought. And this basically brings us back to the question we’ve been asking about Luis for the better part of a year. Was he just lazy? Or was he really badly hurt?
Just for fun, I’m looking at his spray charts on MLB.com. Its amazing, at Shea over the last two years, Castillo hasn’t hit a single ball (hit or out) that reached the outfield between the foul-line and the 378 mark in RF, and the vast majority of his batted balls at Shea were to the left side. Just by eyeballing it, it looks like a good 20% of the field went completely untouched by a Castillo batted-ball. This is very unusual for a switch hitter. He’s been pretty much a dead-pull righty and a slap-and-dash lefty during his time with the Mets. If you go back to 2006 and look at the Metrodome, he used the whole field much, much better. He still didn’t have any knocks right down the RF line, but a lot more balls went to RF and RCF. There was still a higher concentration of batted balls in LF than in RF, but the other big difference you notice is that he used the middle of the field a lot more. The majority of his batted balls that reached the outfield seemed to be CF in 2006, not LF like 2007 and 2008. This may be the key to Luis adjusting to the “reverse-shift,” using the middle of the field more from both sides of the plate.
by Mark Himmelstein on Feb 10, 2009 2:52 PM EST up reply actions
i'm optimistic that castillo can be serviceable this year
his decline in 2008 seemed too severe to be just a matter of declining skills, and these stats seems to back up that assumption. of course, his skills ARE declining, but if he’s healthy, he should still be able to maintain his good OBP and get the average up to something more respectable like .275.
All great comments.
Obviously there is no way Castillo is going to live up to his contract, and I think this was pretty much expected the day he signed it. However, if his knees are ok, I think he should be ok to pencil in at 2B and in the 2 hole.
One thing that wasn't mentioned
Castillo’s IFH% was 7.7% last year. That is well off his career average of 10.9% and it has declined from 12.7% in 2006 and 11.1% in 2007. His bunt hit percentage was down as well but this was more likely to fluctuate. Maybe this is due to lack of conditioning and recovery from the knee surgery, or maybe it’s due to declining overall speed.
Whatever the case, if this doesn’t normalize, I think it’s hard to expect him to achieve his career averages even with an increased LD%. (Luck excluded) Hopefully, with better conditioning, his speed out of the box will return and he can leg out a few more hits.
Spring
I think we will know quite early on whether we will see a Castillo rebirth. If he comes into to Spring Training waddling around on his creaky knees and waiting for every ground ball to roll all the way to him we’ll know we’re in trouble with him, b/c he’s certainly not going to improve as the season wears on.
I do think he can be a good player, but if he’s not in shape Omar better be ready to whip out the buyout offer from his back pocket.
I was however at the game he hit his one HR last year in Atl. Then we loaded the bases off Glavine in the 1st and got nothing (after 2 rockets by Alou and Delgado) and lost the game 5-1-ish. Might have been TG only great game of the year.
remember the game
it honestly ruined my whole weekend (because i’m pretty sure it was a friday)
by Rob Castellano on Feb 10, 2009 2:46 PM EST up reply actions
not quite
it was a tuesday afternoon make-up game in may from the opening weekend rain-out. mets were coming off 2 wins against the nyy’s and looking to roll. instead they blew that big possible first inning and proceeded to get swept in 4 games with church sustaining his concussion. more of my many nightmares at the ted. bad times.
damn
ok well i do remember the game, i listened to it from work and it did ruin my day even if it was a tuesday…
by Rob Castellano on Feb 10, 2009 7:19 PM EST up reply actions
Good post
I’m 100% against having him or another hitter like him in the #2 spot, mainly because having a light hitting, bunting guy is simply not as effective as having a better hitter there.
Who's world is it? It's yours.
Although regardless of whether he's healthier or not
I wouldn’t want him in the 2 hole. I think batting him 9th would be perfect, or first, but I don’t unless his obp is suddenly in the .380s+ again I wouldn’t want him anywhere near the two hole with his sub .400 slugging.
If Castillo hits
the way those projections expect, his season will be determined almost entirely by defense. With a good defense, those batting lines are tolerable for an everyday player, and for the record, I do expect his defense to bounce back more than anything.
However, if his defense remains below average, I don’t see his value changing much from where it is perceived to be right now. In fact, if his bat makes a slight bounce back (as most of those projections expect) and his defense doesn’t improve (even those two things happening together is unlikely), there’s a good chance he’ll get a bit overrated in the mainstream, and at the very least, maybe his contract will be easier to move.
by Mark Himmelstein on Feb 10, 2009 2:22 PM EST reply actions
The Hardball times article on xBABIP
Basically it talks about which players would have been overrated by BABIP, getting lucky or unlucky, Castillo unfortunately in 2007 was one of them. His BABIP, at least according to their model, was actually much higher than it should have been based on his skill set, and his poor season this year was actually right in line with what should be expected with his current skill sets. Basically he wasn’t particularly lucky or unlucky according to their xBABIP.
Church?
I basically agree with this article, but one of my big problems is that both Castillo and Church seem to excel while batting 2nd in the order. Quite frankly, right now even with his injury last season, I have more faith in Ryan Church than I do in Castillo and would therefore rather see Church batting second.
2nd
Church has 151 career plate appearances in the two-hole. He hit .313/.412/.555 there, but it’s hard to get too excited over what amounts to a quarter of a season’s worth of at-bats.
That’s not an argument against hitting him second, just that it isn’t really an argument for it, either.
IMO
its a matter of maximizing the abilities at hand. and while i definitely get what a few people have mentioned about putting the better hitter @ 2 and the problem with a sub-.400 slugger in the heart of the lineup, i still think Castillo belongs there. because i’m assuming Church is the alternative (though Murphy would work and i could definitely buy into that) and while Church is maximized in the 2 hole, he’d still be good in the 6 spot, driving in men on base. Castillo would also do well in the 2 hole, acting as a second leadoff man when Jose gets out or just keep the line moving when Jose is on, and while he wouldn’t drive in Jose from first he could easily drive him in after a single and a steal but he’d be completely useless in the 7 or 8 spot as he keeps the line moving for the pitcher. and yes, he could leadoff, but not on this team.
by Rob Castellano on Feb 10, 2009 7:45 PM EST up reply actions
1st, 8th, or 9th
Can’t really justify hitting Castillo anywhere else – and I’m not a big fan of hitting the pitcher 8th. At least with Castillo hitting 8th, he can use his OBP skills to turn the lineup over. Problem is, we have Schneider too, and it’s hard to move him up in the order.
Castillo hitting 2nd isn’t ideal for me, because he’s got no pop and we don’t need a guy to move Reyes over when Reyes can take the base himself, if he doesn’t hit for extra bases to begin with. Not that “moving the runner over” is the outcome you’re looking for from your 2nd hitter, who is presumably one of your better hitters, anyway.
Castillo hitting leadoff, while it’ll never happen, is probably the least bad option. His best skill, getting on base, is maximized and Reyes hitting 2nd or 3rd is fine. He’s a .300 hitter with some pop.
If I had to choose, I'd rather bat Castillo 1st than 2nd.
Reyes’ extra-base power would be better served coming up with a runner on more often.
Castillo, 2B
Reyes, SS
Beltran, CF
Delgado, 1B
Wright, 3B
Church, RF
Tatis/Murphy, LF
Schneider, C
Pitcher
Actually, that looks pretty nice to me. I’m sure there’s some wrinkle I’m not noticing right off the bat, but it keeps a lot of speed at the top of the lineup, the top of the lineup has great OBP skills. Castillo’s lack of power isn’t a factor batting leadoff, although it does come into play during later innings. Batting our LF platoon 7th means there’s only one weak bat at the bottom of the lineup.
by BobbyV_Incognito on Feb 10, 2009 11:15 PM EST up reply actions
As a few others have mentioned
Castillo is not a slick-fielding 2B anymore. He’s far below average defensively now and that’s a big problem for the Mets. If he hit like he did but fielded like a champ, there wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is his fielding went in the crapper along with the health of his lower body and I don’t see that fielding ever improving.
If that’s the case, the point of this point is basically moot. 1) we’re not paying for league average performance with the stick but that’s what we got. I don’t have a problem with his hitting. His fielding is the problem.
"I got my pregnant wife (the Yankee fan) with me. Hoping my kid learns to kick her everytime the Mets score." -Schifftis-
Hey, I found something to like about Luis Castillo
He doesn’t have an ex-girlfriend suing him for giving her AIDS
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