Left-hander Daniel Castano went unclaimed on waivers and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Jacksonville, the team announced Thursday. Castano, who was designated for assignment to open a roster spot for Johnny Cueto, will be in spring training as a non-roster invitee.
Acquired alongside Sandy Alcantara, Zac Gallen and Magneuris Sierra in the lopsided trade that sent Marcell Ozuna to St. Louis, the now-28-year-old Castano has appeared with the Marlins in each of the past three seasons, pitching to a combined 3.89 ERA over 85 2/3 innings of big league work. However, that ERA has been accompanied by a 12% strikeout rate that ranks as the lowest in MLB dating back to his debut (min. 80 innings pitched).
Castano has strong command, evidenced by a 7.5% walk rate, and he’s avoided hard contact nicely, yielding just an 87.6 mph average exit velocity, a 7% barrel rate and a 35.9% hard-hit rate, per Statcast. Paired with a solid 44.7% ground-ball rate, he’s managed to find some success even in spite of his lack of punchouts — although fielding-independent metrics like FIP (4.86) and SIERA (5.28) feel he’s had his share of good fortune to arrive at that much stronger earned run average.
The addition of Cueto bolstered the Marlins’ rotation depth, although their subsequent trade of Pablo Lopez to the Twins thinned it back out. As such, the Marlins are surely happy to keep Castano in the organization. If he doesn’t earn a spot on the big league roster this spring, he’ll head to Jacksonville and give the club some experienced depth to call on in the event of an injury. While in Triple-A, he can continue to hone the new cutter that he debuted in 2022 — a pitch that emerged as his primary offering this past season. Castano found good success with the pitch in the minors (26.4% strikeout rate), but those new missed bats didn’t carry over to the MLB level for him this past season (12.8% strikeout rate).
Cool. At least the Marlins will still be able to extract some value out of that Marcell Ozuna trade.
That hurts.
Why is it that everytime I look at the Ozuna and Stanton trades, I smile and forget the Yelich trade happened too?
Thank you Alacantara, Gallen/Chisholm, Castano and Steinbrenner checkbook.
Timing is uncanny. If the Os, GM Elias, hadn’t lined up a trade for lefty Irvin from the As — I could have seen a waiver claim for Castano with talk of “building him up as a starter” in lieu of signing an actual big league pitcher.
Somehow to calm the fans who were eyeing their pitchforks and torches, thinking of the best way to storm the Warehouse.
Glad the Marlins will be able to keep Castano in AAA. Hope he sees some IPs in Miami this year.
No one caught that fish.
Krall must have been taking his nap.
White Sox could have used him. I know he has no options left but the Sox also have no SP depth. With the Clevinger news, whether he is on paid leave or suspended, the 5th SP spot is going to be a revolving door of suck.
Edit: also would have liked for them to claim Sheffield, who does have an option.
With Castano back, and Smeltzer added, we’ve got some nice depth at AAA that can help away MLB.
All we need is a Closer.
Lol I would be shocked if he doesn’t log innings for us this year before years end
Lucky break for the Fish, as DC is a talented pitcher, who has the tools to develop into a very usable long-term asset at the MLB level
Well, this was lucky…