Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports
We probably won’t be seeing Starlin Castro again for the rest of the 2014 season. That’s the bad news, especially if you’re a fantasy contender and now trying to dig through the waiver wire to replace a player at one of fantasy baseball’s thinnest positions.
Here’s the good news. Coming in to 2014, a lot of questions persisted about what kind of value Castro would have. While this was only his Age 24 season, we’d already seen a lot of frustrating regression. Fortunately, his performance in 2014 put a lot of those concerns to bed, or at least to the side.
Best of all, as Fangraphs tells us, the increase in productivity was hardly a fluke.
They also show us that to some extent, the poor 2013 season was a little bit of bad luck. Yes, he was far less patient at the plate, but judging by the similar line drive rates in 2012 and 2013, he should have had a few more hits and had a batting average above .250.
But dwelling on 2013 is a fool’s game now. Starlin Castro really became a more complete hitter in 2014. He’s always going to be an aggressive swinger but in 2014, he became more selectively aggressive. That’s a really important distinction. It shows that just a little bit of patience can make the difference between being a bad player (like in 2013) and a pretty good one (like 2012 and 2014).
More importantly, a bounce back season from a young player does something else. It establishes the outlier years as the bad one, not the good ones. If Castro struggled to hit .250 again this year, it would be hard for anyone to justify projecting him to hit above .275 for 2015, even though he is young.
Castro is a .284 career hitter and if we eliminate 2013, he’s a .296 hitter. Given that, there’s no reason to think that he won’t fall somewhere in the .280-.300 range again next year. A higher batting average means getting on base, which means scoring more runs.
The batting average is the primary question when it comes to Castro’s fantasy value, but are there any others? Yes, yes there are.
1. Will he run?
This is doubtful. Castro went from 25 steals in 2012 to 9 in 2013 and 4 in 2014. That’s not a move in the right direction.
The big problem there is that even when he was stealing a lot of bags, Castro was also getting thrown out at a high rate. In 2012, for example, he stole 25 but was gunned down a league leading 13 times. That’s a good sign that he doesn’t get a good read off of the pitcher’s moves.
That can get better over time, but I don’t imagine Castro ever swiping more than about 5-10 bases anymore.
2. Who will his teammates be?
Obviously this is important in figuring how many runs and RBI Castro will produce. Statistically, the Cubs have one of the worst offenses in the league, but that’s changing.
Arismendy Alcantara, Javier Baez, and Jorge Soler have all given Chicago a big spark this year and barring injury, they’ll all be on the team for the full season in 2015.
Kris Bryant also figures to be on the team at some point in 2015, if not at the beginning. He produced a .325/.438/.661 slash line with 43 bombs in the minors this year and while we can’t expect that again in the majors, he should be a much better helper than anyone the Cubs have thrown out at 3B for a long time.
But since we’re talking about potential prospects making the big league roster in 2015, we must ask another question.
3. Will Castro be on the Cubs in 2015?
A relevant question. Addison Russell had a nice year in the minors and the Cubs traded Jeff Samardzija to get him, so he’s definitely the shortstop of the future.
Still, I don’t imagine that Russell will be in Chicago in 2015. He’s only played three Triple-A games, which came at the end of the 2013 season in the A’s organization. He also didn’t perform that well in those games.
Russell spent 2014 in high A ball, and then in Double-A with both the A’s and Cubs.
Lastly, Russell is only going to be 21 in January, so there’s no real need to rush him.
If we’re talking about 2016, then I’m wondering whether or not Castro will be with the Cubs. But for 2015, I think he’ll be in Chicago, batting in the middle of a nice lineup.
Starlin Castro projects well for 2014. He can’t be put above guys like Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, or Jose Reyes, but none of them are exactly sure things as it relates to injuries.
It’s still a long way out, but I wouldn’t be afraid to draft him.