Archive for the “Alex Castellanos” Category

This move should be reminiscent to last year’s trade of David Carpenter to Houston for Pedro Feliz. Carpenter was a quality middle relief prospect that was buried on the depth chart and wasn’t a long term component of the Cardinals’ plans. The team moved him for Pedro Feliz who was hitting .221/.243/.311 at the time.

Alex Castellanos is not someone to lose sleep over. He’s behind both Andrew Brown and Aaron Luna on the corner outfielder depth chart. Castellanos was an adequate defender in a corner outfield position with enough of an arm to play right field.  Castellanos’ prospect status resided firmly on his bat and his ability to hit for power.  While he’s shown impressive power in the past (.192 ISO at Palm Beach in 2010), his .243 ISO was, in part, aided by the friendly confines of Hammons Field.

Castellanos was hitting for average this season though that was something he had struggled with in the past. A .387 BABIP would seem to indicate that he hsan’t really learned a new skill so much as gotten lucky this year.  The strikeout and walk rates for Castellanos are certainly blemishes on his approach at the plate. A free swinger, he was capable of hitting the ball a long way or not at all.

The Cardinals are betting on Rafael Furcal to be healthy. He’s not the anemic lost cause that Pedro Feliz was in 2010 so there’s more reason to be optimistic about this swap.  Castellanos, who turns 25 on Thursday, is unlikely to be a star for the Dodgers. Much as they did when they traded David Carpenter, the Cardinals are patching a big league hole from some minor league depth of questionable long term value. It’s a clear win for the Cardinals.

Best of luck to Alex Castellanos on his new endeavors in the Dodgers farm system.

With the start of short season ball clubs, the Cardinals aren’t necessarily in a hurry to make midseason promotions.  The club hasn’t been shy about moving top performers though including Carlos Martinez’s promotion to Palm Beach that was announced yesterday. Here’s a list of candidates who also look like they’re ready to make the leap to the next level.

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The Cardinals drafted Castellanos in the 10th round in the 2008 draft out of Belmont Abbey College as a draft-eligible sophomore.  Castellanos put up some good numbers across Johnson City and Batavia with a .884 OPS.  However, a trend in his batting was started that has continued the next three years.  Across those two leagues, Castellanos struck out 52 times and walked 10.

In 2009, he was moved up to full season Quad Cities and had a solid if unspectacular year in which he sported a 12% line drive rate, but was putting more balls in play as fly balls (35%) than average and continuing to strike out in bunches.  He had 89 Ks to 20 walks in ~350 PAs. But, with 21 doubles, 4 triples and 5 home runs, when he does get a hold of the ball, something good happens.  That got Castellanos a late promotion to Palm Beach where he struggled in ~50 PAs.

In 2010, his full season in A+ at Palm Beach put him on the map with prospect watchers.  His .370 wOBA, .802 OPS and improved 16% line drive rate helped him to 33 doubles, 7 triples and 13 HRs in a pitcher’s league.  With all these triples, Castellanos’s speed in apparent and in his 4 seasons in the minor leagues, he has 62 stolen bases and only 18 times caught.  That sort of success puts his Fangraphs Speed Score up with the major league leaders in the category.

However, in Palm Beach in 2010, he did strike out 109 times and only walk 38.

Castellanos is off to a huge start in 2011, but at this point it looks slightly unsustainable because he has hit home runs on 16.1% of his balls hit in the air.  (Around 6.5% is average.)

Looking at the stats, it is pretty clear what type of player Castellanos is so far in his career.  He will swing for the fences and is happy to go down swinging while trying.  He will not try to work a walk and his OBP will not be much more than his AVG. But when he hits the ball it will go very far and he has the ability to stretch a single into a double and double into a triple which helps his slugging numbers.  Once on base, he also has dangerous speed to steal bases at will.  Castellanos is an intriguing prospect based on his power and speed numbers, but will need to cut down on the strikeouts and add some walks to really push his prospect status to the next level.

I know, I know – it’s early.  Small sample sizes and all that – I get it.  But still, I think that we’ve seen enough of some of our draft picks to have a very early idea of what we’ve got in them.  The truth of the matter is that I’ve been dying to write this post since the day Brett Wallace signed his contract, but I wanted him to get a few at bats under his belt.  He now has 68 plate appearances and 54 at bats.  That’s good enough for me.  So, then, after the jump we’ll take a look at how Brett and the rest of the 2008 draft class have been faring.  Read the rest of this entry »