Los Angeles Dodgers: Why Nicholas Castellanos is the perfect fit
By Jason Reed
3. Castellanos’ pros heavily outweigh his cons
Castellanos is the perfect case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. On one hand, you have an offensive presence that absolutely smashes left-handed pitching that would be a nice addition to a left-handed heavy lineup. On the other hand, you have a defensive headache that probably shouldn’t be a full-time outfielder and could give the Dodgers problems in that regard.
You know who that sounds a lot like? Matt Kemp, who was an all-star with the Dodgers and, although he had a reduced role down the stretch, was still a huge impact player for the Dodgers. The only difference between the two is the Dodgers would not have to give Castellanos a reduced role.
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Castellanos brings exactly what the Dodgers need offensively. As good as the Dodgers are in slugging home runs and scoring runs, the team is very left-handed heavy and it showed in the 2018 World Series with the lineups the Dodgers had to implement against Chris Sale, David Price and Eduardo Rodriguez.
Castellanos led the entire major leagues in batting average against southpaws last season, hitting a video game-like clip of .381. Castellanos is not just a one-way highway, like most of the Dodgers’ southpaw specialists from years past, as he also hit .273 with a .807 OPS against right-handed pitching.
His defense is a worry and it would be ignorant to just ignore that flaw. He is much less of a defensive headache at third base than he would, say, left field.
However, the Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the best teams in the league in positioning their outfielders to be successful and banking on who is good in what areas. That is why Matt Kemp actually posted his best defensive rating on FanGraphs since 2013. It was still -9.6 but was significantly better than the -19.0 it was two years ago.
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Castellanos won’t be a defensive savior by any means but the Dodgers have the personnel and the analytics department to make his defense much less of an Achilles’ Heel than some would think.