Changing of the (Shin) Guard

In Wednesday’s 9-1 loss to Tampa, Welington Castillo was batting in the bottom of the ninth, two out and two on.  It wasn’t so much rally time as one of those times no one blames you for trying to pad your stats, and Castillo desperately needs to pad his.  Right now, he’s batting .095, 2 for 21, with 2 RBIs.  Anyway, he hit a sharp groundball to shortstop Willy Adames, who booted it.

 

From the sound of his voice, Sox announcer Jason Benetti expected a close play at first base, but either Castillo wasn’t running the ball out or he couldn’t.  I’m more inclined to the former.  Sorry, players who get caught taking PEDs forfeit the benefit of the doubt.  Let’s just say Castillo was out by a comfortable distance. 

 

Sox GM Rick Hahn signed Castillo to a two-year, $15 million deal in 2018, and so far that’s translated to six homeruns and 17 RBIs, plus an 80-game suspension.  If it ever happened that I was the GM who signed Castillo and my father was owner of the team (trust me, things would never be dull then), he would’ve asked me what I had for brains before showing me the door.  Lucky for Hahn he works for such an enlightened owner as Jerry Reinsdorf.

 

But here’s a thought—why not buy out the remainder of Castillo’s contract?  Between them at Triple-A Charlotte, catchers-of-the-future Seby Zavala and Zack Collins have combined for five homeruns and thirteen RBIs; Zavala is hitting .280, Collins two points less.  I mean, the front office has got the money, right?  If the Sox were going after both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, there has to be piles of cashing laying around.  Use a tiny portion of it to buy out Castillo, and then promote a catcher.

 

If that works, pay catcher James McCann the $2.5 million he’s due and send him packing, after which you bring up the other catcher.  Isn’t that sort of what Hahn did with James Shields?  No, wait, the Sox kept Shields around for every last day of his deal rather than admit what a colossal mistake acquiring him was.  Expect more of the same with Castillo and McCann. 

Just don't expect a whole lot of production or hustle out of the catcher's spot, at least half of the time.