Where do we begin? Last year I said Castro was the safest shortstop available and I stood by those words, drafting him in three of four leagues. Not only did proclaim he was the safest shortstop I said something to the effect of, “Castro has the raw talent to be super star, but has yet to put it all together over a full season.” Any time we see a young player play really well it’s only natural to assume that the player is going to get even better because the body and mind will mature. However, it’s possible for young players in this current generation do not get dramatically better as they age. In fact in Jeff Zimmerman’s piece he theorizes (with data) that young players play the best when they first get to the majors, sustain that performance for a few years then begin their decline. If Zimmerman is correct is it possible we have already seen Castro’s ultimate ceiling? I’m not at that point yet, but it is something I’m strongly considering if he has another down year.
In terms of his 2013 season there were quite a few negative trends. For example, his strikeout rate increased four percentage points while walk rate decreased one percentage point. I’m not really concerned with the walk rate because he’s never been a patient hitter and besides, he has shown throughout his career he knows how to put barrel on the ball with being patient.
Before 2013 Castro has always been able to smash non-fastballs as he had a .289 batting average. However, last year he only hit .219 against non-fastballs. A lot of decrease in performance, in general, can be deduced from poor BABIPs, which implies he was unlucky and is likely to rebound because of the three plus years of solid output. For his career he only has a stolen base success rate of 65 percent, which is extremely low. He’s still a plus runner, but I have to believe the Cubs are going to strongly consider limiting his stolen base attempts moving forward. His 2013 was so bad that fantasy owners considering drafting him have to basically take a leap of faith because all the data suggests he was either unlucky or really bad; it depends how much you believe in 2013 versus the three years prior. I think Castro is a great buy low.
If you are looking for his statistical projections please go here and download my latest projections.
