2011 ST Random Phillies Stuff III: The Search for Grit

by **joe table** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:04:42

I've actually been working on a similar breakdown for Luis Castillo

*He is old and has the face/goatee of an old Haitian wino who has been living on a park bench

*His knees are like two large mortar and pestle grinders

*He would hit 8th on the Toms River LLWS team

*He can only play 2nd, and poorly

by **jerseyhoya** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:05:43

joe table wrote:I've actually been working on a similar breakdown for Luis Castillo

*He is old and has the face/goatee of an old Haitian wino who has been living on a park bench

*His knees are like two large mortar and pestle grinders

*He would hit 8th on the Toms River LLWS team

*He can only play 2nd, and poorly

Legendary

by **mcare89** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:08:02

joe table wrote:I've actually been working on a similar breakdown for Luis Castillo

*He is old and has the face/goatee of an old Haitian wino who has been living on a park bench

*His knees are like two large mortar and pestle grinders

*He would hit 8th on the Toms River LLWS team

*He can only play 2nd, and poorly

Standing ovation.

by **swishnicholson** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:09:38

'fugees are of course unanimously glad to see him ago, with some reservations that he'll turn it around for the Phillies just to spite them.

You forget one thing-- Castillo's the mush. This team was in first place firmly in 2007 when that fucking idiot former GM acquired Castillo, and we've sucked almost since then. The same fate will fall upon the Phillies, even with their four thousand fucking aces in their rotation.

This is probably a good thing, as 'fugees are generally wrong..

by **LongDrive** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:11:14

swishnicholson wrote:'fugees are of course unanimously glad to see him ago, with some reservations that he'll turn it around for the Phillies just to spite them.

You forget one thing-- Castillo's the mush. This team was in first place firmly in 2007 when that #$&! idiot former GM acquired Castillo, and we've sucked almost since then. The same fate will fall upon the Phillies, even with their four thousand #$&! aces in their rotation.

This is probably a good thing, as 'fugees are generally wrong..

Love it!

by **FTN** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:11:47

castillo is fine.

.365 OB%. No power. Not a SB threat. His defense actually isnt as bad as its being made out to be. He was decent in 2010, not so great in 2009.

He plays inning 1-7, Valdez comes in for defense.

I love this.

by **LongDrive** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:13:13

I like this too. Cheap/low risk

by **LongDrive** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:15:11

Funny thing is, I joked a couple weeks ago that the Phils should do this when he was to be released.

by **mcare89** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:15:40

And really, worst case, he sucks, and we cut him. He's making the league minimum. I don't think there's any pressure to keep Luis Castillo around if he sucks.

by **FTN** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:21:22

I really do love this.

He's a better player right now than Barfield, Delwyn Young, Michael Martinez, and anyone else we might have in house. He's been an everyday player his entire career, hes played in the playoffs. Is his skill set eroding? Yes. But we didn't give him a 3 year deal. He still draws walks, and he still makes consistent contact. He has no power. He's never had power. He's not going to steal 40 bases anymore. But he doesn't have to. His defense isn't great, but he's not a butcher, and he makes most of the plays he gets to (haha, except that popup against the Yankees) and won't kill us.

As much as you can't quantify what playing for the Mets does to a player, I wouldn't be shocked at all to see him get a little pep in his step and have a solid 6 weeks or so. Your work environment can have a big impact on your ability to do your job at a very high level.

Rollins
Polanco
Ibanez
Howard
Victorino
Francisco
Ruiz
Castillo

I like it.

by **Monkeyboy** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:23:24

I guess I'm ok with it, even though I've always kinda disliked him from his time in Florida. I don't like what it says to the players that came to camp and played very well, but I guess that happens sometimes.

by **joe table** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:25:42

It's not a "terrible" move I just don't want to have to watch this poor old bastard limp around and swing his wet newspaper up there to hit 30 foot popups to the 3B. And even with a .300 BABIP he's a .680 OPS last year because he had 6 effin XBHs. And he's station to station when he gets on. Really, we will all completely despise him almost immediately and call for him to be mercy killed with a shovel by Mick Billmeyer out in the equipment shed by the ASB

That being said I don't like Valdez at 2B so that is addition by subtraction. He doesn't look comfortable fielding there IMO and don't think he'd be as good a defender as he was at SS. I would have liked to see Young get a shot since he has at least some power and a good minor league track record, but I guess he'll be in LHV if we need him

by **GrizzledVeteran** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:26:19

joe table wrote:I've actually been working on a similar breakdown for Luis Castillo

*He is old and has the face/goatee of an old Haitian wino who has been living on a park bench

*His knees are like two large mortar and pestle grinders

*He would hit 8th on the Toms River LLWS team

*He can only play 2nd, and poorly

What he said. He's awful. Terrible. I'd rather listen to Tom McCarthy motivational speeches than see this guy sign with the Phils. He's done. Washed up. Toast. Please, no.

by **Wheels Tupay** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:32:40

GrizzledVeteran wrote:
joe table wrote:I've actually been working on a similar breakdown for Luis Castillo

*He is old and has the face/goatee of an old Haitian wino who has been living on a park bench

*His knees are like two large mortar and pestle grinders

*He would hit 8th on the Toms River LLWS team

*He can only play 2nd, and poorly

What he said. He's awful. Terrible. I'd rather listen to Tom McCarthy motivational speeches than see this guy sign with the Phils. He's done. Washed up. Toast. Please, no.

by **FTN** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:37:42

If Castillo plays well, Mets fans are going to kill themselves en masse.

this should be reason enough for every Phillies fan to love this.

$414K. 1 year.

That's .25% of our payroll.

And it didnt involve us trading away Blanton and taking Michael Young's albatross of a contract.

If Castillo is solid for 2 months, it will be an awesome value.

At this point, I trust the Phillies ability to turn trash into treasure. I never liked Castillo. I still really dont. But if he comes up aces for the Phillies, its going to destroy Mets fans even more. And I'm always on board for that.

by **smitty** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:39:28

Last year he hit only .235 yet had an OBP of .337. Howina hell does a guy who has 6 XBH in 247 ABs do that? Can he do it again? If he hits .260 and has an OBP 100 points above his BA that's pretty good.

All of the Philly utility infielders have lots of weaknesses and few strengths. They are having great springs but none of them have done much with the bat or glove (except Valdez' leather) that I can tell.

And Castillo is basically free right?

That said, hell be 35 years old this year. He has had foot and leg (and maybe even hip) problems for a few years now.

How's his fielding?

According to the Dewan =/- thingy he's been rated 21st; 23d; 32d; 31st and 12th (!) over the last five years. The FRAA thingamabob in the BP annual has basically rated him as terrible in 08 and 09 and not so bad last year somehow.

I guess that's why defensive stats are so questionable to me because Castillo was old and kinda crippled up last season and he has his best glove season in years. That doesn't make much sense. What do the other defensive type stats say about him.

The Dewan stats also has this defensive GIDP rating and he's bad there too: 29th; 34th; 26th; 35th; 28th.

So what do we have here. A guy who is old and can't run and who can't hit and who can't field. Plus, he's hurt a lot with leg injuries which rob him of pretty much everything he used to do well.

So to be valuable he must hit enough to have a good average and also continue to somehow draw them walks.

Even still, that puts him in the running with the rest of our utility infield hopefuls.

by **FTN** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:43:24

ek wrote:even if they sign him, there's probably a decent shot they will cut him anyway. i don't know if he's gonna cut it anymore

I think this is how the roster is going to look, as far as position players

C - Ruiz
1B - Howard
2B - Castillo
3B - Polanco
SS - Rollins
LF - Ibanez
CF - Victorino
RF - Francisco

BN-C - Schneider
BN - INF - Valdez, Martinez
BN - OF - Gload, Mayberry

Martinez can play 2B, SS, 3B, and OF
Valdez covers you at 2B, SS and 3B. Gload can play the OF corners and 1B. Mayberry can play all 3 OF positions and 1B.

Barfield, Young and Orr go to AAA. All three were NRI's, right?

by **Monkeyboy** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:45:28

The more I think about this, the less I like it. I'm going to recant my earlier "ok with it."

He doesn't do anything well, other than maybe take walks, which is negated by his horrible everything else. If it's really only going to be 1-2 months, I would rather let Young or Barfield play. If it's going to be any longer, then I think they'll need to find someone a little better, which isn't really Castillo

by **swishnicholson** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:46:12

ek wrote:even if they sign him, there's probably a decent shot they will cut him anyway. i don't know if he's gonna cut it anymore

That would almost sway me to signing him right away. At least there's a little spring left where they can look at him up close.

My guess is that they won't like what they see, but sometimes you have to see things for yourself.

by **joe table** » Sun Mar 20, 2011 20:46:24

FTN just posted some valid analysis as to why he likes Wood, well Delwyn Young has a lot of similarities to Wood

-Hit a lot at every minor league stop. Now he didn't get the chance to be as young for his level as Wood was, but he still hit at age appropriate levels (22 at A+, 23 at AA, etc). .303/364/514 in 3066 PA his MiLB career, vs .284/.352/.536 in 3356 MiLB PAs for Wood. Both logged a lot of PCL ABs which skeptics can point to as inflating the numbers

-Neither hit in the bigs, but in limited samples. Young has been .709 OPS in 779 big league PAs, vs .458 OPS in 479 PAs for Wood. Both K'ed too much (+25%) in the bigs

I'm not saying Young is a potential 2B of the future because he is almost 30 now, but he's a guy who has some upside IMO based on his MiLB track record and an inconclusive big league sample

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2011 ST Random Phillies Stuff III: The Search for Grit