After throwing 48.2 innings in 2024 between two levels, Carlos Castillo nearly doubled his workload this past season, finishing with 95 as a 19-year-old. He even got a chance to work out of the bullpen once for High-A Greensboro to close out the season.
He handled the added workload just fine, finishing with a 2.61 ERA over the last two months of the season, while posting a 3.79 mark overall.
Castillo is still a bit of a work in progress, as he doesn’t miss many bats at this point, striking out 76 batters in those 95 innings, but he does show an advanced feel to pitch compared to his age, and gets a lot of weak contact with his sinker/slider combination.
There still looks like there is some room to grow into his frame, which would ideally add a couple of ticks on his fastball. He’s dialed it up to the mid-90s, but usually sits in the 91-92 range. The slider does show some promise, and he’s shown a feel for a change-up as well.
Castillo spent the entire season at 19 and should start the season in Greensboro at 20, which is an aggressive approach we’ve seen with the arms the Pirates are higher on.
He’s an arm to monitor to see if the stuff takes another step forward. If the velocity trends up and finds a pitch he’s comfortable with to miss bats, he’s another arm that could creep into the back end of some top 30 team lists.Â