Matt Martin has coached Nick Castellanos for seven years, helping to build the right-handed swing that produced the sixth-most extra-base hits in the majors from 2016 through last season. He often hears from envious hitters who point to Castellanos and say, “I wish my swing could look like that.”
Who better, then, to explain why the Phillies’ $100 million slugger has struggled so badly in his first season with the team — and how he may finally be able to get on track?
“The swing itself right now, it looks good. It’s getting there,” Martin said Wednesday night by phone. “He just hasn’t been right. And he’s made it worse with all the right intentions.”
More on that momentarily. Right now, the relevant numbers:
— After averaging one home run every 22.85 plate appearances over the last five seasons, Castellanos had one homer in 205 plate appearances entering Thursday night’s series opener in Pittsburgh.
— With eight homers overall, he was on pace to finish the season with 13, which would be his lowest total since 2014, his rookie year with the Detroit Tigers.
— Of the 157 players who qualify for the batting title, he was tied for 78th in extra-base hits (29) and 132nd in slugging (.365), and ranked 136th in OPS (.656). He was 157th in Fangraphs’ wins above replacement (-1.4).
And then there are the boos, which got louder over the last week and reached a crescendo when Castellanos grounded into a rally-ending double play in the fourth inning Wednesday.
“It’s tough, honestly,” J.T. Realmuto said. “When you’re getting paid more money, there’s more pressure that comes along with it. He’s on a new team in a new city. Our fans aren’t always the easiest to play for. When you’re struggling, they let you know.
“Look at the teams he’s played for in the past. They don’t have a fan base that’s as passionate as ours is. That’s probably something new for him.”
Castellanos concedes that it’s “just different” in Philadelphia, while also insisting it’s “nothing I can’t adapt to.” Maybe so. But his longtime personal hitting coach traces his problems more to the weight of being a big-ticket free agent than a wayward swing.
“He’s so disappointed in himself that he thinks he’s letting [Phillies president of baseball operations] Dave Dombrowski down, the owner down, his teammates down, the fans down, everybody down,” said Martin, a Lubbock, Texas-based hitting instructor hired recently by the Phillies as a special assistant to director of player development Preston Mattingly. “That’s why, and that’s how he’s made it worse.”
But Castellanos didn’t start slow. Two games into the season, he crushed a 426-foot homer to center field on such an effortless swing that Martin said it reminded him of Manny Ramirez. Through May 10, he was batting .311 with five homers and a .907 OPS.
That’s when the slump began. And although it seemed Castellanos may be snapping out of it by homering in back-to-back games May 29-30, Martin believes he really went off the rails later that week.
Martin, who coached for the Tigers and later the Dodgers, Orioles, and Angels, happened to be at Citizens Bank Park on June 1 when Castellanos hit a 406-foot drive that was caught at the wall by leaping San Francisco Giants center fielder Mike Yastrzemski. Two days later, as Martin was deplaning in Dallas, a friend called to tell him that Castellanos hit two balls to the warning track in left field and got robbed of two doubles in a game against the Angels.
Already frustrated by the baseball, slightly deadened this season by MLB and seemingly traveling a few feet less than in previous years, Castellanos’ exasperation grew. He began swinging at more pitches outside the strike zone. His chase rate is 40.3%, a career high and an increase from 36.3% last year and 35.9% in 2020.
“Nick is like, ‘I’m right there. I’ve got to lift harder with my swing,’” Martin said. “And then he gets further and further away. It’s like if someone is sinking in quicksand and slowly going down. They fight, fight, fight, and make the situation worse. Getting back to what is natural or what it really is becomes more difficult.”
Layer on top of it the self-applied pressure of living up to his contract, the Phillies’ 10-year playoff drought, and a fastball that broke Bryce Harper’s thumb on June 25 and pushed Castellanos into the No. 3 spot in the order, and, well, the quicksand has only deepened.
Castellanos drew a comparison to 2020, when he signed a four-year, $64 million contract with the Cincinnati Reds and struggled to a .784 OPS in the pandemic-shortened season. But it isn’t the same as struggling in a big, sports-crazed Northeast market.
It’s commendable, Martin said, that Castellanos cares so much about reaching the expectations associated with his contract. At some point, though, it becomes unproductive.
Like Martin, Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long believes Castellanos’ swing is back in decent shape. He also praised the right fielder’s diligence and work habits. If anything, Long is trying to help Castellanos “change the feelings he has within himself” by focusing on what he can do over the season’s final two months rather than dwelling on what he didn’t do through the first four.
“There’s some doubt right now,” Long said. “There’s a confidence — you can see it — that’s not where it needs to be. I just don’t feel like he’s gone up there yet with the weight of the world off his shoulders.”
The question for the Phillies, then, is how they can help Castellanos relax.
“I wish I knew the answer to that,” said Dombrowski, who ran the Tigers’ baseball operations when they drafted Castellanos in 2010. “Maybe he’s putting too much pressure on himself. He’s very self-conscious of trying to produce for us and disappointing people. I don’t know if that’s leading him to trying to do too much. I don’t really know. I wish I did.”
This much is certain: With the Phillies sitting out the Juan Soto sweepstakes, there isn’t a hitter available before Tuesday’s trade deadline who is capable of boosting the offense as much as Castellanos — if he’s able to recover his confidence and his power, whichever comes first.
Martin, for one, doesn’t think Castellanos’ season is a lost cause.
“Sometimes when the dial breaks off, after not being able to sleep at night and feeling like you’re letting people down, it’s like there’s some inner peace in it,” he said. “I think he’s getting to that point where you could see what you saw on the second day of the season. If that happens, man, he’d be the best trade-deadline pick-up there is.”
