However, since the mid-season trade to the Chicago Cubs, Castellanos has been nothing short of great. After an up-and-down 2019 season that featured a slow start in Detroit followed by a white-hot stretch in Chicago, Nicholas Castellanos is testing the free-agent market. This seems to point to improved patience at the plate which may allow him to see more pitches he can do something with. More > Why Cards could prefer Castellanos to Ozuna. "Ozuna, on the other hand, declined a qualifying offer from the Cardinals, and as a result, other teams need to surrender one or more Draft picks to sign him. On Tuesday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Jeff Wilson cited a club official saying the team hasn't yet made Castellanos an offer, and that Texas wouldn't do something like move Joey Gallo to first base to accommodate Castellanos in right field. This suggests the quality of contact on the balls he’s putting in the air is better.This can be seen in the steady growth of sweet spot% as the season has gone on.There really is a lot of interesting things that have happened with Things are interesting here because it seems you can tell pitchers just attacked him differently compared to previous years.The F-Strike% was a career-low at 62.2% and this was accompanied by a career-low zone rate of 39.3%. The gist of it is that Castellanos is not tied to Draft-pick compensation because, unlike Ozuna, he was not presented with the qualifying offer at season's end by virtue of having been traded during 2019.In other words, there's no penalty for signing Castellanos, but there is for Ozuna. He likely wasn’t given much to hit and pitchers weren’t going to test him. You can see there’s been a change in how pitchers have also attacked him of late.Starting in August, A.K.A the post-trade era, you’ll notice the upward trend of fastballs A career batting average of .298 and a career slugging percentage of .533 on four-seamers is exactly why the increase in fastballs is such a benefit to him. If he tails back off that may change but I don’t think that is going to happen.It’s hard to truly pinpoint a ranking until we know where he’s playing but I love the floor he offers to a team so I know he will be ranked in that area for me without much doubt in my mind next season.Fantrax was one of the fastest-growing fantasy sites of 2018 and we’re not slowing down any time soon! I’d like to see the end of season numbers as a whole for Castellanos prior to suggesting regression is coming. However, MLB Network insider Jon Heyman reports that Ozuna had multiple multi-year offers on the table -- albeit at a lower average annual value -- than the deal he ultimately signed with the Braves. Plus, if Ozuna inks elsewhere, the Cardinals MLB Network insider Ken Rosenthal pointed out this strategy, as relayed by an MLB executive.Rival exec makes interesting point: Would be smart for It's not necessarily that Cincinnati no longer is interested in Castellanos. Cincinnati appears to sense an opportunity to make up ground in the competitive National League Central.
But the chase rate has also dropped a few points to 39.8%. The Cubs have to be regretting letting Nicholas Castella nos walk away. With fewer pitches in the zone as a whole, this may have been what led Castellanos to chase more. Cincy did have interest in both players before signing Akiyama, Sheldon noted. Nicholas Castellanos Early life and Education. The xSLG of .486 is 27 points lower than the actual SLG% of .513.I believe he got off to such a mediocre start that this current hot run probably hasn’t had a chance to fully affect the numbers. January 27, 2020 Entering 2019 I was a fan of Nicholas Castellanos.