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We Need to Talk About Nick Castellanos
By Tim Reilly
Published:
For a team that has established a comfortable lead in the National League East division race on the road to its fourth consecutive postseason appearance, the Phillies have quite a few challenges to address. One of those challenges is solving the enigma that is Nick Castellanos.
No, Nick Castellanos is not the problem preventing the Phils from unlocking their full potential and going on another World Series run. But he is a problem, and his general lack of production at the plate has hampered the team’s offense at various points throughout the 2025 campaign.
Castellanos finds himself at the present moment firmly entrenched in one of those production valleys. Per StatMuse, in the 22 games since the All-Star break, the Phillies’ rightfielder boasts an unsightly .186 batting average. Of his 16 hits in that span, just four have gone for extra bases. Despite the prime real estate he holds in the middle of the order, he has just 2 RBI in the month of August. All of Castellanos’s familiar bad habits are evident in his current approach at the plate. He’s chasing bad pitches, flailing at breaking balls as he loses his hips, and generating weak contact with his arms. Pitchers quickly get ahead in the count and then wisely attack away and off the plate, relying on Castellanos to get himself out. More often than not, he complies.
Unfortunately, this recent stretch of bad form is not an anomaly in 2025. Castellanos’s page on Baseball Savant is practically a blue monochrome, displaying league-low averages in chase, whiff, strikeout, and walk percentage.
This is not the player or the performance the Phillies thought they were getting when they signed Castellanos to a five-year, $100 million contract ahead of the 2022 season. He was brought in to be a middle-of-the-order difference maker, a slugger from the right side of the plate who would bring balance to the lineup and offer protection for lefthanded power hitters Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber.
“I’ve known Nick for a long time. He’s one of the premier hitters in Major League Baseball,” President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski declared at Castellanos’s introductory press conference. “He grinds his at-bats. He’s a great offensive player.” Dombrowski added that Castellanos would bring determination and a championship work ethic and mentality to the clubhouse.
Added agent Scott Boras, “He’s always asking, questioning, examining. Nothing about what he does surprises him, except for the next day he wants to do it better, more consistently.”
The press release announcing the signing touted the 153 doubles and 262 extra-base hits Castellanos accrued from the 2018-2021 seasons, which led the league. He slugged his way into the 30 home run, 100 RBI club in his final season as a Cincinnati Red, sporting a .309 batting average along the way.
The Phillies haven’t seen that version of Nick Castellanos too often in his four years in Philadelphia. While the diligence to his craft and dedication to his teammates are clear, the offensive output is lacking. When he’s hitting, he’s not hitting for power. When he’s not hitting, he’s not working counts and drawing walks. The grinder is gone, replaced by an impatient, free swinger who’s popping out and grounding out frequently.
Although the Phillies didn’t sign Castellanos for his glove, his decline in the field is undeniable as well. His range is limited, his jumps are poor, and he’s letting balls that should be caught drop in for hits. The spectacular catches that were a fixture of his game for the first years of his tenure are just a memory now.
Dombrowski’s inability or unwillingness to add another bat to fill the void at the deadline has exacerbated the situation. Ramon Laureano would have been an interesting option, but the erstwhile Baltimore Oriole flew west to San Diego instead. Dombrowski preferred to acquire Harrison Bader, a solid outfielder and serviceable-but-not-spectacular hitter who won’t fill the void in the middle of the Phillies’ order.
Bader also will not cut into Castellanos’s playing time, which would be under threat if he were a younger player on a cheaper contract. He remains protected by the conventional baseball wisdom that takes comfort in veterans who have “done it before” and, to a lesser extent, by a lucrative contract. Despite the emergence of advanced metrics and statistical wunderkinds occupying front offices, baseball is still a game governed by the past, with evaluators peering into the crystal ball of previous performance to predict future results.
The Phillies can hope that the imminent return of Alec Bohm, combined with the incredible resurgence of J.T. Realmuto, provides the righthanded pop they will need while Castellanos figures out his issues at the plate. Maybe it will work, or maybe Bohm will continue to be the high-average, no-power contact hitter he’s consistently been, and maybe Realmuto will come back down to earth as the demands of his position and the elaborate mechanics of his swing betray him.
What the Phillies ultimately need is for Nick Castellanos to be the guy. The guy in the middle of the order that makes a team pay for pitching around Bryce Harper or bringing in a lefty specialist to navigate around the Schwaber/Harper tandem. The guy who drives in runs in big moments. The guy who turns on a 100 mph fastball and crushes a home run in a decisive playoff game. The guy with the swagger and confidence to put the team on his back and carry the offense when needed.
That guy’s been missing in action this year. The Phillies desperately need him back if they want to climb the mountain and win the World Series.
Tim Reilly is a freelance writer from Northeast Philadelphia. He can be reached at reillyt7@gmail.com.