Wellington Castillo Traded To Mariners For Reliever
The Cubs traded Wellington Castillo to the Mariners earlier today in exchange for relief pitcher, Yoervis Medina. Here’s what you need to know.
Who We Gave Up - first and foremost we gave up quite literally my favorite nickname on the team. There’s just something about calling a big chubby Dominican catcher “beef” that makes me happy. That and beef wellington is absolutely fuckin DELICIOUS. Nicknames aside, we’re also losing a marginally above average starting catcher. Keyword: starting. When Beef got consistent playing time, he was definitely brought some value to the table . His WAR over the last 3 seasons as our primary backstop was 1.8, 4.5 (wait he was that good?) and 1.2 respectively, and he’s historically hit left handed pitching quite well. That’s why the Cubs were comfortable bringing in Montero, who crushes right handed pitching, to go dutch on regular time with Beef. It appeared there would be a nice platoon shaping up, and that hopefully the extra rest would improve Castillo’s defense and ability to put together a gameplan for the starting pitcher. Unfortunately that didn’t shake out – he’s been absolutely AWFUL splitting time with Ross and Montero – so we shipped him off to Seattle where he will now split time (again) with alleged-phenom-in-the-making Mike Zunino.
Sidebar: Zunino sucks at baseball.
Who We Got – a reliever you probably haven’t heard of before, Yoervis Medina. I can’t remember if he’s from Venezuela or Ireland, but I do know that he throws in the mid to upper 90’s and also features a curve and some kind of split/change hybrid. Translation: he’s got really nasty stuff. Unfortunately, that also means he has some command issues which is evidenced by his career 4.9 walks per 9 innings pitched. That’s pretty fuckin terrible to be honest with you. But that’s to be expected from a young power reliever. On the bright side, and despite his command issues, Medina has been very good out of the bullpen for the Mariners with a career ERA+ of 131 and career average against of .216. Couple that with the fact that he’s only 26 years old and in his 3rd full season (which means this year and then 3 more of club control) and you got yourself a nice little addition.
Also worth mentioning that he’ll get to work alongside other young up and coming relievers with Rondon, Grimm, Ramirez, and Rosscup while still being able to be around more established veterans like Motte, Edwin Jackson (do the opposite of what he says obviously), James Russell and Strop. It’s a good young guy/veteran mix that should hopefully provide enough motivation through competition for a set-up spot while also having a good balance of guys who’ve been there before. That and you have to like the fact that Joe Maddon is his manager. Call me crazy, but I would imagine that would help him take the next step. Here’s some video on him.
ALEXXXXIIIIIIII…. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO – Hawk voice