Nick Castellanos

... on the margins the last two or three years, and it comes from having a great veteran, successful, experienced scouting staff and letting them go to work, rather than just throwing money around.

Who remembers that Nick Castellanos was on this team? Like, that was, like, one of the earliest storylines of, of this Padres team.

Yeah.

And it's like, whoa, that feels like that was five years ago.

Yeah.

And again, right, you're never gonna be 100% on anything, right? Yes, there's Nick Castellanos and Yuli Gurriel and Jason Heyward.

Right.

[laughs] Connor Joe.

Lucas Giolito is super in the negative.

But in terms of WAR, the only one who's been worse position players-wise, Nick Castellanos.

Now, he produced a negative .9.

Cronenworth is at negative .5, and Castellanos hasn't been on this team since, heck, since before the Seahawks won the Super Bowl.

That's how long it feels like.

I know that's not literally how long it was, how long ago it was, but yeah.

By the way, remember Nick Castellanos when he was on this team? [laughs] That was crazy.

He did have a couple nice hits for us.

I'm being real.

Nick Castellanos said as much.

They feel it.

When people are dead silence in there, they sit there and they crumble.

And we don't have to go far, Mason, to prove how these draft picks can be important because there are other ways, as I said.

Like, I don't know, 2000, what, after the 2021 season, and the Reds, uh, basically don't offer, or they offer, um, a qualifying offer to Nick Castellanos, who opted out of his contract the final two years.

He opted out, and then the Reds get a compensation pick when he signed that big deal with the Phillies.

What did the Reds do? Uh, you're muted.

[laughs]

I'm the young one.

I, I remember Nick Castellanos saying, you know, he was open.

I think he wanted to come back to Cincinnati, or so he said, and he, uh, hadn't heard, uh, from the front office.

Because there are other ways, as I said.

Like, I don't know, 2000, what, after the 2021 season? And the Reds basically don't offer, or they offer a qualifying offer to Nick Castellanos, who opted out of his contract in the final two years.

He opted out, and then the Reds get a compensation pick when he signed that big deal with the Phillies.

What did the Reds do? Uh, you're muted.

We don't have to talk more about that.

Classic Reds.

Nick Castellanos struggled in those 60 games.

And so he had an opt out and he was, he kind of looked at the, the landscape and decided, no, I'm not opting out after this one.

Yeah, I mean, like, it wasn't exactly his choice.

Nick Castellanos opted out and wasn't going to sign here.

But letting him go and just, like, I just remember a big outcry.

Like, how can you not try to keep him in all this? Well, because they weren't gonna.

I'm not sure they wanted to.

Right.

When you look at what happened, I don't think what happened with Nick Castellanos in Philadelphia was a surprise to the Cincinnati Reds.

Yeah.

I think he was the hitting coach there when they had, like, um, Geno, uh, before he left the Reds.

I think that's when they had Nicholas Castellanos, like, when the Reds really had one of their more, like, offensively, um, explosive teams.

Which, you know, that could be...

Is it, is it a, uh, oh, he was successful because the hitters around him were just so, so many powerful hitters? Or did he turn them into really powerful hitters? It could be one way or the other, but at this point with the offense being the way it has been this year, I think it's definitely deserving to, you know, maybe look at in the off season of moving on from Mather.