{"id":570175,"date":"2026-02-13T12:55:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/570175\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:55:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T12:55:21","slug":"phillies-release-nick-castellanos-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/570175\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Release Nick Castellanos – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Phillies have released outfielder Nick Castellanos<\/a>, per a club announcement. He\u2019s now a free agent who can sign with any club for the league minimum.<\/p>\n

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Castellanos was slated to report to camp in the next few days. He\u2019ll now stay at home and wait to learn where his next opportunity will come. He\u2019s entering the final season of a five-year, $100MM contract that calls for a $20MM salary in 2026. The Phillies will remain on the hook for the entirety of that sum, minus the prorated portion of the league minimum paid to him by any other club\u00a0 who picks him up for even a portion of the season.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s release should come as no surprise. Castellanos stood as an obvious trade or release candidate at season\u2019s end, even before early-November reporting suggested that the Phils would cut ties with him<\/a>. Earlier this week, it became clear that an inflection point was fast approaching<\/a>. The Phillies weren\u2019t able to find a taker for even a portion of Castellanos\u2019 salary, it seems, so he\u2019ll now head back to the open market and see if there\u2019s interest from another team as a league-minimum player or minor league\/non-roster player in camp.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia\u2019s signing of Castellanos always came as something of a surprise. They\u2019d already signed Kyle Schwarber<\/a> on a four-year, $79MM deal prior to signing Castellanos in the 2021-22 offseason. Both players profile as bat-first corner outfielders who are better suited for DH work, but the Phils opted to ink both to long-term deals, ensuring that one of the two would be in the outfield on a regular basis. That wound up being Castellanos more than Schwarber, and his annually poor glovework has only worsened over the course of his four seasons in Philly.<\/p>\n

The hope for the Phils was that Castellanos\u2019 bat would outweigh the negative contributions he\u2019d made with his glove. He\u2019d turned in a huge .309\/.362\/.576 slash with the Reds the season prior and was carrying an impressive .290\/.345\/.527 slash over the four years leading up to his Phillies deal.<\/p>\n

Things didn\u2019t pan out that way. Castellanos\u2019 bat immediately went south in 2022. He hit just .263\/.305\/.389 in his first season of that five-year contract. He bounced back to an extent over the next two years (.263\/.311\/.454) but was barely above replacement level due to poor defense (-20 Defensive Runs Saved, -13 Outs Above Average). The 2025 season marked another step back. Castellanos hit .250\/.294\/.400 \u2014 about 10% worse than league-average, by measure of wRC+ \u2014 and was dinged for -11 DRS and -12 OAA.<\/p>\n

The Phillies might still have tried to coax something out of Castellanos in 2026 had tensions between the player and club not boiled over during the season. Castellanos was removed from a close game in Miami for defensive purposes and benched the next day after what manager Rob Thomson<\/a> called an \u201cinappropriate\u201d comment. Matt Gelb of The Athletic reported<\/a> after the season ended that Castellanos\u2019 teammates and coaches were \u201cdisgusted\u201d by what he\u2019d said. The outfielder later took a shot at Thomson\u2019s communication skills<\/a> down the stretch in the final weeks of the season.<\/p>\n

Castellanos himself addressed the \u201cMiami incident,\u201d as he termed it, in a post on Instagram today<\/a>. He made no mention of the comment that apparently rankled so many of his teammates but admitted to bringing a beer into the dugout out of frustration after being lifted from the game by Thomson.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter being taken out of a close ball game in front of my friends and family, I brought a Presidente into the dugout,\u201d the Miami-area native wrote. \u201cI then sat right next to Rob and let him know that too much slack in some areas and too tight of restrictions in others was not conducive to us winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his note today, Castellanos thanked his teammates for taking the drink from his hand before he actually took a sip, apologized to them and reiterated that he apologized to both Thomson and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski for letting his emotions get the better of him. He added that he was prepared to share the details of the incident with the media at the time it happened but was instructed not to by Phillies management.<\/p>\n

The question now becomes one of which \u2014 if any \u2014 team will be willing to give Castellanos a fresh start in hopes that he can get back to his prior levels of offense. While he still hit for a decent average and knocked in 70-plus runs in each of the past three seasons in Philadelphia, much of that had to do with lineup placement and a strong cast ahead of him (e.g. Trea Turner<\/a>, Bryce Harper<\/a>, Schwarber).<\/p>\n

Castellanos has never walked much and has turned in three of his four career-low walk rates since donning a Phillies uniform. The plus power he showed with the Tigers, Cubs and Reds prior to signing in Philadelphia has dwindled, too; he posted an ISO (slugging percentage minus batting average) north of .200 for six straight seasons prior to his Phillies tenure (.229 overall). He topped .200 just once with the Phillies, in 2023, when he logged a .204 mark. He\u2019s lost two miles per hour on his bat speed over the past three seasons and posted below-average numbers against fastballs for the first time in his career in 2025, hitting .236 with a meek .368 slugging percentage versus four-seamers.<\/p>\n

A club with DH at-bats to spare could well look into Castellanos, but it\u2019s unlikely anyone would sign him to log significant time in the outfield. Teams will surely be wary of the manner in which his relationship with the Phillies deteriorated as well. For instance, Isaac Azout of Fish On First reports<\/a> that the Marlins, despite lacking an obvious solution at designated hitter, aren\u2019t interested in bringing Castellanos into the fold.<\/p>\n