Rosenthal: Phillies Nick Castellanos, after struggling to find his fit all year, thrives in Game

April 21, 2024

The night the Phillies clinched their first postseason berth since 2011, Nick Castellanos stood alone in the corner of the visiting clubhouse at Houston’s Minute Maid Park. He held a beer and watched his teammates celebrate, detached from the scene, almost emotionless. It seemed the perfect summation of his first season with the Phillies. He didn’t seem to fit.

Actually, Castellanos said, that wasn’t it at all. After a season in which everything felt rushed, a season in which he produced a career-low .694 OPS in the first year of a five-year, $100 million free-agent contract, he merely wanted to see how much the moment meant to people he has come to cherish. Phillies owner John Middleton and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski. Teammates Bryce Harper, Rhys Hoskins, J.T. Realmuto and Aaron Nola.

“For me to be kind of on the outside and see how important it was for them and how real it was for them, that’s emotion I can use,” Castellanos said. “That’s when baseball becomes fun. You start again playing with your friends. It was just really refreshing.”

Eight days later, Castellanos was sitting at his locker in the visiting clubhouse at Truist Park, having just returned from the postgame interview room, where he shared the podium with Harper. He had been one of the Phillies’ heroes, going 3-for-5 with a double and three RBIs, making a stunning, sliding catch in the ninth inning to help preserve a 7-6 victory over the Braves in Game 1 of the Division Series. And as he reflected on a season in which he seemingly could not catch his breath, he said he was excited by the possibility that even more meaningful moments might lie ahead.

It was not an easy year for Castellanos. It was, perhaps, the most difficult of his career. The owners’ lockout prevented him from savoring the free-agent process the way he envisioned. The Marlins, the team that made him fall in love with baseball growing up in South Florida, did not sign him. And he said once he joined the Phillies, he grew upset when a radio station leaked his home address, and when a television station edited a postgame exchange with longtime Phillies beat writer Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia to make it appear more confrontational than it was. Castellanos said he had no problem with Salisbury, and that he would have come off professionally if the interview had been shown in full.

“I will say, I’m somebody who doesn’t forget anything. I’m also somebody who takes everything personally,” Castellanos said. “I’m not going to say that’s a good thing. It could be a flaw of mine. … Sure, there have been certain weighted issues that I felt I’ve carried with me longer than I should have.”

His offensive struggles only exacerbated his frustration. If there is one thing Castellanos could always do, it’s hit. Hoskins said at times he sensed Castellanos was down, but that his work habits, his day-to-day approach, his effort during games remained consistent. Castellanos said he tried to help younger teammates, make himself an asset to the coaches. But when he was out from Sept. 4 to Sept. 27 with a right oblique strain, then went 0-for-7 in the wild-card series against the Cardinals, it appeared there was no end to his downward spiral.

Then came Tuesday. Game 1 against the Braves.

“The beautiful thing about baseball is you have time to redeem yourself,” Castellanos said. “You can be the goat one day, the hero the next.”

(Dale Zanine / USA Today Sports)

After opting out of his deal with the Reds last November, Castellanos was excited for his second crack at free agency. Teams would woo him, coveting a player who established career-highs last season by batting .309 with 34 homers and a .939 OPS. He would meet with front offices, pick the brains of general managers about their philosophies.

“When you’ve had success and put your time in,” he said, “you’ve earned a seat at that table.”

But that’s not quite what happened.

The lockout started Dec. 1. It did not end until March 10. Castellanos reached an agreement with the Phillies eight days later. Like other free agents in his position, he had to report to spring training immediately. And on top of all that, his wife, Jessica, was pregnant with their son, Otto, who was born on May 4.

“I read an interview Kris Bryant gave,” Castellanos said, referring to his former Cubs teammate who agreed to a seven-year, $182 million free-agent contract with the Rockies, also on March 18. “His whole year just felt rushed.

“Hurry up and find a team. Hurry up and get to spring training. Hurry up and figure out what your role is. Figure out where you’re going to live. Figure out what the city’s like, what the fans are like, how the media is. Then throw a new kid into the mix. It was just a lot. I juggled as best I can. Obviously for my standards, I fell short.”

The Phillies were not necessarily his first choice. Castellanos dreamed of returning home to play for the Marlins. He thought it was going to happen, too, until Derek Jeter resigned as Marlins CEO on Feb. 28. At the time, Jeter said, “the vision for the future of the franchise is different than the one I signed up to lead.”

As a baseball market, Miami does not match the intensity of Philadelphia. Few major-league cities do. Castellanos, though, said the softer spotlight was not what appealed to him. He wanted to enjoy regular conversations with Jeter, “to build a franchise that ignited my love for the sport in the first place.” Instead, between Jeter’s resignation and the lockout, he learned the business of baseball “can be uninspiring to (someone) playing a kid’s game.”

And so he landed in Philly, which for him, was never going to be the easiest fit.

“I’m somebody who does the best I can to be invisible when I’m off the field,” Castellanos said. “I’m a baseball player. I’m for everybody between the lines. But I want to be as normal as possible when I’m not playing. I have no interest in being a celebrity.”

(Brett Davis / USA Today Sports)

The Phillies never planned for Castellanos, a below-average defender, to be their regular right fielder. But Harper, after injuring his right elbow on a throw to home plate, did not play right after April 16, serving only as a DH. Castellanos took over in right, and the results were predictable.

Among right fielders, he ranked 34th in defensive runs saved and 38th in outs above average, ahead of only Juan Soto. As recently as Sept. 30, before the Phillies clinched their wild-card spot, manager Rob Thomson removed him for a late-inning defensive replacement.

On Tuesday, with a 7-3 lead in the bottom of the eighth, Thomson did no such thing. Instead, he inserted Brandon Marsh in center and moved Matt Vierling to left in place of Kyle Schwarber. Castellanos, who produced two opposite-field hits and a two-run single in his first three at-bats, remained in right.

“I like the way Nick’s been playing the outfield lately, I really do,” Thomson said. “And so I decided to stay with it. That could change moving forward, but I thought he was good.”

It is becoming pointless to question Thomson, whom the Phillies named their permanent manager on Monday, signing him to a two-year contract. The Phillies went 65-46 under Thomson after going 22-29 under Joe Girardi. They are now 3-0 in the postseason. And with one out in the ninth, after Matt Olson’s three-run homer pulled the Braves within one run, Thomson’s intuition on Castellanos proved correct.

William Contreras hit a sinking line drive to right. Castellanos raced in, reached out with his glove and slid. “I thought it hit the ground,” said Hoskins, the Phillies’ first baseman. “That’s how close it was.” If the ball had gotten by Castellanos, it might have rolled to the wall, enabling Contreras to take extra bases. Instead, Castellanos made the catch, then laid flat on his back looking up at the sky, grateful the ball had found his glove.

One out later, the game was over.

“No panic,” Harper told me in his postgame interview on Fox. “We have all the faith in the world in him to make plays out there for us.”

Thomson, too, spoke optimistically about Castellanos, saying maybe he was getting his timing back at the plate. Castellanos, after returning to his locker, spoke softly. It’s only one game, he said. The Braves are defending World Series champions. As always, the baseball bromide, “can’t get too high, can’t get too low,” applies.

Castellanos, though, might indeed be starting to regain his mojo. He did not sit out the celebration of the Phillies’ victory over the Cardinals in the wild-card round the way he did the team’s postseason clincher in Houston. He brought his 9-year-old son, Liam, into the clubhouse. And Liam, too, got drenched with champagne.

“That was the first time I’ve ever won a postseason series,” said Castellanos, who lost the 2014 Division Series with the Tigers and 2020 wild-card series with the Reds. “Being able to retire two legends of baseball (Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina) was also a reminder of how temporary this game is. They’re never going to put on uniforms again. That’s a humbling feeling. There are just a lot of things happening at the right time.”

So, can he be happy in Philadelphia?

“Of course I could,” Castellanos said. “My first year in Cincinnati (2020) wasn’t exactly the best year I’ve ever had. My wife, Jess, says I’m a control freak, that I really like being in control of my environment. Sometimes when there are so many new things in your environment, it’s really hard to be in control, right?

“I’ve never doubted that all it’s going to take is a little bit of time for me to settle in. But once I feel settled in and my day gets more simple and rhythmic, and the game becomes more simple, that’s usually when Nick starts to thrive.”

For one day at least, a very important day, Nick thrived again.

(Top photo: Brett Davis / USA Today Sports)

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