Baltimore Orioles: Welington Castillo Likely To Sign Elsewhere
By Ben Palmer
The Baltimore Orioles have been tied to former Arizona Diamondbacks catcher Welington Castillo. Now it seems that he will likely sign with a different team.
It’s no secret that the Baltimore Orioles are in need of a catcher, and they’ve been linked to multiple different free agent catchers. We’ve heard that they’re interested in Nick Hundley, Chris Iannetta, and Welington Castillo.
Now it appears that, according to Dan Connolly, that the 29-year-old catcher will be signing with a different team than the Baltimore Orioles.
According to Connolly, the Orioles and Castillo have talked a lot, including after the winter meetings ended, and it seems that Baltimore is willing to offer Castillo a multi-year deal, but things have not progressed from there.
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It seems that multiple teams have put multi-year deals on the table for Castillo, and it’s seeming more likely that Castillo will be going to one of those teams rather than the Orioles.
Castillo is coming off of a decent year, and is a solid free agent catcher. His glove isn’t the best, but he’s shown that he can be a good offensive force from behind the plate.
Last season, Castillo batted .264/.322/.423 with 14 HRs, 41 R and 68 RBIs. He also had a 39.8% hard hit rate, which was good for 14th in the league, just below Kris Bryant and just ahead of Corey Seager.
We’ll see what the Orioles end up doing at the catcher position. We recently took a look at the possible additions on the free agent market that the Orioles could pursue. There isn’t much, but there are some capable players.
Next: Solving the Orioles Catcher Conundrum
The Orioles could also elect to re-sign Matt Wieters, whose market is continuing to shrink. Certainly Baltimore fans would love to see Wieters back, and the longer he remains a free agent, the cheaper he may be to re-sign, though being that he’s a Scott Boras client, anything is possible.