It’s late enough in the season that we can start reading into numbers a bit, so here are a few: Nick Castellanos is hitting .308 with a .538 slugging percentage. Good. The underlying metrics are even better: He’s struck out as often (9.3% of the time) as he’s walked. Both figures would be, by far, the best of his career. His chase rate is 29.9. That would also be the best.
It’s 11 games, and despite the first sentence above, that’s not a lot. But for a team that entered the offseason looking to make changes — if not in personnel, then in approach — no one has successfully embodied it more than Castellanos.
And yet there’s a couple numbers that have followed Castellanos around for the majority of those 11 games: five, or six. That’s where he’s been placed in the lineup all but two times in the early goings.
Is it time that changes?
Castellanos has been the Phillies’ best hitter this year not named Kyle Schwarber or Edmundo Sosa. There’s an argument that messing with his rhythm isn’t worth it, but he’s spoken in the past about feeling more comfortable higher in the lineup with more protection. Maybe they can squeeze even more out of him. That would be one reason to elevate him.
Another is that it could play to the benefit of a different right-handed regular in the Phillies’ lineup. After an offseason of trade rumors and questions about his long-term future in Philadelphia, no one opened the regular season under more scrutiny than Alec Bohm. It hasn’t gone away. After an 0-for-5, four-strikeout showing in Atlanta on Wednesday night, Bohm has four hits in 35 at-bats since starting the season with a pair of two-hit games in Washington. He’s chasing at a career-high 33.3% clip.
Arguably more concerning than anything is that his body language, a focal point as last season came to a close and the aforementioned trade rumors swirled, doesn’t look all that much different from years past. The Phillies spoke highly of his attitude heading into camp, and they weren’t being dishonest. But the real test for Bohm was always going to be how he handled the rough patches. This is a rough patch. It’s way too early to suggest any drastic measures, such as a trade or starting Sosa at third on a regular basis. But maybe a break for a day or two, or a swap with Castellanos in the order, could help.
There’s something to be said for keeping Castellanos’ bat in the bottom half of the lineup to give the Phillies some thump where they’ve mostly lacked it so far. Again, it’s 11 games, and for as much as the offense has had its ups and downs, they’re top six in MLB in batting average, on-base and slugging percentage, good enough for an 8-3 start.
Rob Thomson’s modus operandi since he took over as Phillies skipper in 2022 has been trust and steadiness — trusting his players enough to figure things out, avoiding anything that the clubhouse might perceive as a panic move. It’s why Thomson kept Castellanos in the lineup every day early in the 2024 season despite a cold start, and it paid off. Maybe he takes the same approach with Bohm for at least the next couple weeks.
But Thomson has also been operating with something of a sense of urgency in the first couple weeks of the year, and sliding Castellanos up would fit that bill. Maybe his production — both in the box score and beneath the surface — are simply too much to ignore.
