The Detroit Tigers are slipping.
Of course, the season is still but a baby with almost 100 games yet to be played.
But you wake up today and the Tigers sit five games back of Kansas City. While not an insurmountable deficit by any means, it’s serious enough to warrant a hard look at what is wrong and how such matters can be fixed.
The most glaring hole at this moment in time is found at third base. The hot corner. Only, it’s been the opposite of hot throughout most of the year. Of late, it’s been ice cold.
Nick Castellanos, at least for now, seems completely ill-equipped to handle a starting, everyday spot in the big leagues. And for a team teetering precariously on the edge between contention and irrelevance, having such a punchless player in the lineup can be devastating.
It’s not as if Castellanos is mired in some mini-slump. For all intents and purposes, he now strides to the plate holding a wooden bat that might as well be a forkful of linguine. He’s a National League pitcher masquerading as an American League third baseman.
For the year, he is hitting .221. He’s managed four home runs, none in the last 23 games. He’s second on the team in strikeouts.
And the numbers have been more glaring of late.
Second Coming of Sparky?
Since a two-hit effort in the last game out in Oakland, Castellanos has been a zero: 17 games, one extra-base hit, a .153 batting average, and a paltry two runs scored. You look at the stats long enough and the only position player in the game’s long history that comes to mind is one Sparky Anderson.
Sparky famously played one full year as the starting second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. He started almost every game and was completely ineffective at the plate.
Sure enough, that was it.
Not a game before that season and not a game after it. One full season as a big league starter represents the entirety of Sparky Anderson’s playing career.
It’s not to suggest that Castellanos is quite on Sparky’s level of ineptitude, but the fact that the comparison is even remotely valid is cause for major concern.
The Tigers have proven throughout the tenure of Dave Dombrowski that they always believe in themselves as legitimate title contenders. They make big moves at the deadline and jettison players to the minors if the struggles become overwhelming. Such a transaction took place earlier this week with the demotion of Shane Greene.
It might be time for the same sequence to take place with Nick Castellanos.
Time to Act is Now
The standings tell the story. There is not a whole lot of wiggle room or time to wait out a young prospect trying to rediscover his stroke. Having a starting player that carries with him an average sinking towards .200 and a penchant for big whiffs is not a privilege you are granted when you’re in third place and the team at the top has the second best record in baseball.
No, the Tigers don’t have a Don Wert waiting in the wings to take the place of Castellanos if and when he joins Greene in Toledo. But Andrew Romine is serviceable, and even recent call-up Josh Wilson has been hot with the bat in limited time. While neither guy puts many balls over the fence, you’d have to believe that they could find a way to produce at a more respectable clip than the one established by Castellanos thus far in 2015.
A trip down I-75 South would not mean that the career of Nick Castellanos is over. It’s not some massive alarm bell that indicates the final days of a big league player. It would just mean that the team has deemed these recent problems to be too much at the present time, and that it would benefit all parties involved for a little more minor league seasoning to take place.
In an ideal world, the progression of the young player would continue to tick upward every day, every month, every year. Last year, Castellanos appeared in 148 games and knocked in 66 runs. He registered a not-too-shabby 8th-place finish in the AL Rookie of the Year voting.
The thought is that following a year like that, the days of minor league ball for this athlete are no more. He has qualified as a real, live major league ballplayer and there’s no going back.
But in this case, he must. There are no indications that Castellanos is on the verge of turning things around. He can say all the right things, but you have to believe that the strikeouts and the hitless games are beginning to wear on him.
The best thing for Nicky C. at this time might just be a little R and R down in Toledo. Let him go hang with Shane Greene for a few weeks. Let him go watch Mike Hessman, the modern day Babe Ruth of the minor leagues.
Anything would be an improvement to the daily 0-fer we’ve come to expect.
Can’t Afford Holes in the Lineup
The Tigers are still right in the thick of things. And they will be all year.
But you still must act with a sense of urgency and understand that each starting spot, be that of a pitcher or position player, should be filled with a player capable of providing a punch.
Right now, Castellanos does not pass muster. He could very well be that person next month or next year, but right now, he’s a guy searching for answers that simply will not come when trying to deal with the day in, day out, meat grinder that is the baseball regular season.
Like Sparky Anderson, maybe Castellanos will one day make his mark as a big league skipper. Maybe he’ll oversee a dynasty like the Big Red Machine or command a juggernaut like the ’84 Tigers.
But right now, he just needs to be anything but Detroit’s starting third baseman.
Sooner rather than later.
