One of the big free agent signings prior to the 2020 season, Nick Castellanos is getting ready to begin his second season in the outfield for the Cincinnati Reds.
Last season Castellanos led the team with 11 doubles and two triples while finishing second with 14 home runs and 34 RBI.
After eight major league seasons, the majority of which were spent with the Detroit Tigers, Castellanos is a career .274 hitter with 134 home runs and 494 RBI. He led the American League with 10 triples in 2017.
Here are three things to know about Nick Castellanos
His 2019 season split between the Tigers and the Chicago Cubs was a historic one for Castellanos.
The 58 doubles he hit that year were good enough for 10th in baseball history. He also joined Hank Greenberg and Joe Medwick as the only right-handed hitters to have more than 55 doubles and 25 home runs in the same season.
That led to Cubs fans dubbing him "Nicky Two Bags" a season before leading the Reds in the category.
Nick drafted his younger brother, Ryan Castellanos
Nick wasn't the only baseball player in his household growing up. Younger brother, Ryan, played in college at Nova Southeastern University and was good enough to be drafted by the Tigers in 2015.
Detroit allowed big brother Nick to make the announcement: “Detroit Tigers select ID number 3369, Castellanos, Ryan, right-handed pitcher … brother of myself,” Nick said.
Ryan spent three seasons in the Tigers minor league system before last playing for the Washington WildThings of the Frontier League in 2018.
Don't count Nick Castellanos as a follower of Sabermetrics
When the Tigers were trying to move him before the trade deadline, some teams were hesitant to pull the trigger on making a move for Castellanos.
He believes baseball analytics played a role in that and he denounced the "Moneyball" way of constructing a team.
“The movie Moneyball, that was the start of introducing this idea of analytics to fans,’’ Castellanos told USA Today. “Obviously, the movie was entertaining with Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt. But the way I look at it, what good did it do the A’s? They still haven’t won the World Series.’’
In the meantime, the Cubs traded for him and he responded by hitting .321 with 16 homers and 36 RBI in 51 games during the playoff push.
