Currently viewing the tag: "Welington Castillo"

There’s not much going on in the world of baseball right now. The Diamondbacks made some minor moves after the first of the year, but there’s been little since. They just signed Chris Iannetta to support Jeff Mathis and Chris Herrmann, citing his on-base skills and power as selling points. There wasn’t much talk of his poor framing numbers, …

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Let’s say you took over a baseball club with a recent history of some severe struggles. The main culprit, it appears, is pitching—only a handful of pitchers have broken through for the team in recent memory, and most have done quite a bit worse than expected. The fact that many pitchers have struggled at the same time has caused a …

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While most of the talk surrounding the Diamondbacks has to do with one of many fiascos, there’s still some reason to discuss the team’s roster. Sure, it’s had it’s share of injuries and trades take their toll, leaving the team with some sub-optimal situations; one’s that seem they were unprepared to deal with, generally. Not having a backup centerfielder …

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There are very few circumstances in which it makes sense to stand pat during any trade season, be it in the offseason or in July. This July, however, the D-backs are about as far on that end of the spectrum as a team can be. Currently sitting in 4th place in the NL West and in need of an historic

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I’ve used this metaphor before, but I can’t think of a better one. Say 30 people are in a room for a meeting, and in comes a giant plate of sandwiches. Maybe more sandwiches than are needed (35?), but not so many that people aren’t eyeing the buffet to see if they need to make a bold move to get …

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A little more than a week ago I told you that Welington Castillo is a bad pitch framer. He’s more or less average at the other, more traditional parts of catching – namely blocking and throwing. People have talked about him being good with the pitchers and that they like working with him and I can’t really speak to …

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I’m frequently surprised by how aggressive some people are in negotiation — and how frequently it works. I tend to stake out ground and defend it, rather than go all over the place. The benefit of that kind of general reasonableness is that you get to take an unreasonable position from time to time and garb it in that same …

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The Same Old Beef

On January 19, 2016 By

Before Welington “Beef” Castillo came along, the Diamondbacks’ catching situation was laughably bad. It inspired a number of articles that all came to the same general conclusion: they aren’t actually going to run that out there all season are they? They were, and then the Mariners did a dumb thing (as they are seemingly prone to doing) and took Mark

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If they haven’t already settled on a 2016 salary, seven D-backs players will file for arbitration on January 12th, next Tuesday, with exchanging figures with the team a few days later, on Friday, January 15th. So what’s going on with those cases right now? On Monday, I ran through pre-figure exchange strategies for both sides with respect to Rubby De

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Last seasons, Chip Hale earned a gold star for his work mixing and matching players in the outfield. With five players initially, then four players for the three spots, he allocated the time about as perfectly as possible. Down the stretch, A.J. Pollock played roughly 95% of the time, David Peralta played about 85% of the time, Ender Inciarte played …

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Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk of you again
Because a trade softly creeping
Hit its bombs while I was tweeting 
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of “Trumbo”

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For all practical purposes, the D-backs are set at catcher in the near term (a/k/a The Contention Window), thanks to the tremendous 2015 contributions of not-quite-full-time catcher Welington Castillo. The team may or may not add Jarrod Saltalamacchia — probably in a role where the proportion of his PAs to innings caught is higher than normal — and while …

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The D-backs have a great young team of position players, and the makings of a pitching staff that could be at least solid. With the team on the upswing and organizational memory of .500 seasons in both 2013 and 2014, it’s easy to focus on how high the team can go. That’s important, and maybe the most important thing. Still …

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Beef Mode on Overdrive

On August 13, 2015 By

Welington Castillo. Man. Who saw this coming? The guy who was supposed to help solidify a beyond-shaky catching situation has, unexpectedly, turned into an offensive juggernaut for the Diamondbacks. To get the full effect of how blown away we should be about his performance, I guess you have to understand two things. The first of those things is just how …

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Of all of the things the D-backs have done well since the front office was assembled in September, the most impressive thing may be the timing of their decisions. Three, or four, or six weeks into the season, it would have been easy to pull the plug on Nick Ahmed playing everyday shortstop, but they stayed the course, and that …

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Guys — Jake Lamb is back. Jordan Pacheco was designated for assignment on Saturday, with Lamb taking his spot and getting pinched into the game late that night. He struck out while playing for Yasmany Tomas in that game, which was won by a home run from new catcher Welington Castillo. Lamb then got the start yesterday, striking out …

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