Don’t sleep on Miguel Castro.
When former Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen made another one of his infamous, too-high-of-a-ranked-prospect for too-little-return trades, at last season’s August 31 trade deadline, most Mets fans just shook their heads.
Few fans knew much about Kevin Smith, then the Mets’ 12th-ranked prospect, headed back to Baltimore, but knew a prospect ranked that high shouldn’t be going in a trade for a relief pitcher with no options, a 4.66 ERA, and a 4.73 FIP in 2019.
In all fairness, Castro, now 26, was looking pretty good for the O’s in the first half of the shortened 2020 season. When the Mets traded for him he had struck out 24 batters and walked five over 15.2 innings pitched.
In Castro’s 10 appearances with the Mets last season, his command issues continued (eight walks in nine innings) but he was able to carry his strikeout success over to New York with 14 punchouts over that span.
In the current scenario, Castro could be a huge piece to the Mets’ 2021 bullpen.
With Seth Lugo out until at least May as he recovers from elbow surgery (bone spur) and with question marks remaining next to Dellin Betances and Jeurys Familia’s names, Castro’s role becomes that much more important.
We can’t expect Castro to keep this strikeout rate over a full season, but in his three previous full seasons, Castro raised his strikeouts per nine rate from 5.2 in 2017 to 5.9 in 2018 to a solid 8.7 in 2019.
Castro’s key to success is maintaining that high strikeout rate and managing his walks. Another positive development for Castro could be who is fielding behind him.
The new-look 2021 Mets already brought some great reinforcements with Francisco Lindor at shortstop, McNeil poised to get the brunt of the work at second base, and the late-inning center field defensive replacements of Kevin Pillar and Albert Almora Jr.
The 2020 Mets defense was terrible. Their -22 defensive runs saved as a team ranked 26th in baseball. Castro’s previous team, the Orioles, ranked 18th at -1 DRS — could be partially the reason why Castro’s 2020 BABIP was .407. In prior years, Castro’s BABIP was much lower at .269 and .259 in 2019 and 2018 respectively.
With the addition of Francisco Lindor, who accumulated +5 outs above average at shortstop with Cleveland in 2020, and Jeff McNeil who has always held down a formidable second base (+4 OAA at second since 2018).
This could help Castro, a pitcher who already sports a slightly higher than average groundball rate. His 49.2% GB since 2017 would rank 52nd among MLB relievers if he qualified.
With Seth Lugo out for the foreseeable future and if Betances and Familia continue their 2020 struggles into the new year, Castro could quickly become an important piece in this bullpen.
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Don’t Sleep on Miguel Castro
Castro is super interesting. He gets ground balls on his heater because of it's shape and where he tends to locate it (down), but ue can get chases with his off-speed stuff. There's certainly breakout potential if Hef and Meinhold can help him dial in the command a bit more.
Seems like we have several RPs with command issues. Hopefully it can be a major focus during ST, the last thing you want is walks out of the bullpen.