Philadelphia Phillies: Should Luis Castillo be on Dombrowski’s radar?

Big trade looming for the Philadelphia Phillies?

In a bit of a surprising turn of events, it was revealed that Cincinnati Reds ace Luis Castillo is currently being made available in trade talks. The Reds have spent a majority of the offseason attempting to shed salary (letting Trevor Bauer walk, trading Raisel Iglesias), but Castillo getting tossed on the trade block was not something people anticipated. With an exciting opportunity now present, Dave Dombrowski and the Philadelphia Phillies could pounce.

For starters, Castillo is an incredibly productive pitcher. He has a career ERA of 3.62 across 90 starts with the Reds (four seasons), and he’s coming off an All-Star appearance in 2019. This past season, he posted a 3.21 ERA across 12 starts. He was sightly overshadowed by the Cy Young winning Trevor Bauer, but he still had one of the more dominant 2020 campaigns in the National League.

Outside of his elite ability, the most intriguing aspect to Castillo is the fact that he’s on a super affordable contract. He’s set to earn $3-5 million through arbitration this winter, and he’ll remain arbitration eligible for 2022 and 2023. In a league that’s currently undergoing some massive financial turnover due to COVID-19, having an “Ace” on that type of money is beyond valuable.

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For the Philadelphia Phillies, the general consensus is that they too are trying to shed salary this winter. Ownership has repeatedly made this known through the media, and newly hired President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowski went as far as to call 2020 a “re-tool” year, as opposed to a season where the team expects to contend for a World Series.

Guys like Jean Segura and Zack Wheeler have had their names tossed around in trade discussions, almost exclusively due to the fact that they make a lot of money.

Even with the Phillies gearing up for a mini rebuild/retool, Castillo is pretty in line with what the team should be targeting at the moment. He’s on a super affordable salary for the next three seasons (which is pretty much what the Phillies’ contention window is at the moment), and Dombrowski has a historic reputation of gunning for elite starting pitchers via the trade market (Max Scherzer, Chris Sale).

It’s hard not to connect the dots just a bit when it comes to any potential Phillies-Castillo rumors.

With that in mind, Castillo shouldn’t be expected to come at a cheap cost. With his contract being one of the best in all of baseball at the moment, the haul that would be necessary to acquire him should be significant. MLB Network’s Jon Heyman said the price on Castillo is “appropriately high”, and that the Reds are ultimately in no rush to trade him.

Some sort of package centered around Mick Abel – the Phillies #1 pitching prospect – makes the most sense.

Giving up Abel after just recently drafting him obviously stings, but the potential to build a Castillo-Nola-Wheeler-Eflin-Howard rotation shouldn’t be undersold. That would without question be the best starting staff in all of baseball, and could carry the Phillies to playoff success similar to how the Nationals’ Scherzer-Strasburg-Corbin trio did in 2019. Dombrowski is always itching to make a big “win now” trade, and John Middleton would likely sign off on it due to Castillo’s low salary.

Ultimately speaking, there’s been nothing that’s directly linked the Phillies to Castillo, but it’s worth mentioning nevertheless. An out-of-the-blue deal for an Ace is very much in line with what Dombrowski tends to do upon arriving to baseball teams, and Castillo ticks off all the boxes in terms of what the Phillies should want right about now.