The Phillies released the outfielder Nick Castellanosaccording to the club’s announcement. He is now a free agent who can sign with any club for a league-low fee.
Castellanos was expected to report to camp in the next few days. Now he will sit at home and wait to learn where his next opportunity will come. He is entering the final season of a five-year, $100MM contract that calls for a $20MM salary in 2026. The Phillies will keep a share of that total, minus the split portion of the league minimum paid by any other club that picks him up for even half a season.
Today’s release should come as no surprise. Castellanos stood as an obvious target for a trade or release at the end of the season, even before a report in early November suggested the Phils would cut ties with him. Earlier this week, it became clear that the inflection point was fast approaching. The Phillies couldn’t find a taker for even half of Castellanos’ salary, it seems, so now he’ll head back to the open market and see if there’s any interest from another team as a minor-league or minor-league/no-camp player.
Philadelphia’s signing of Castellanos was always a surprise. They have already signed Kyle Schwarber to a four-year, $79MM deal before signing Castellanos through the 2021-22 offseason. Both players profile as top corner outfielders better suited for the DH job, but the Phils opted to sign both of them to long-term deals, ensuring that one of the two will be on the field regularly. That ended up being Castellanos over Schwarber, and his poor annual glove work got worse during his four seasons in Philly.
The Phils’ hope was that Castellanos’ bat would outweigh the poor contributions he had made with his glove. He converted a massive .309/.362/.576 slash with the Reds last season and had an impressive .290/.345/.527 in the four years leading up to his Phillies deal.
Things didn’t go that way. Castellanos’ bat immediately went south in 2022. He hit just .263/.305/.389 in his first season of that five-year deal. He regressed in rate over the next two years (.263/.311/.454) but was just above replacement rate due to poor defense (-20 Defensive Runs Saved, -13 Outs Over Average). The 2025 season marked another step back. Castellanos hit .250/.294/.400 — about 10% worse than league average, by wRC+ rating — and dipped to -11 DRS and -12 OAA.
The Phillies may have been trying to make a deal for Castellanos in 2026 and there was a rift between the player and the club that did not end during the season. Castellanos was removed from a close game in Miami for defensive purposes and benched the next day after manager Rob Thomson called the comments “inappropriate”. Matt Gelb of The Athletic reported after the season that Castellanos’ teammates and coaches were “disgusted” by what he said. The late outfielder took a shot at Thomson’s ability to communicate on the ground in the final weeks of the season.
Castellanos himself addressed the “Miami incident,” as he calls it, in an Instagram post today. He did not say the speech that seemed to rankle many of his teammates but he admitted that he put beer in the hole because of boredom after being taken out of the game by Thomson.
“After being ejected from a close football game in front of my friends and family, I brought the President into the dugout,” the Miami native wrote. “Then I sat next to Rob and let him know that being too loose in some areas and too strict in others doesn’t encourage us to win.”
In his letter today, Castellanos thanked his teammates for taking the drink out of his hand before he drank, apologized to them and insisted that he apologized to both Thomson and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski for letting his emotions get the better of him. He went on to say that he was willing to tell the media about the details of the incident when it happened, but was instructed by Phillies management.
The question now becomes one of which – if any – team will agree to give Castellanos a fresh start in the hope that he can return to his best form. While he still hit for a good average and scored 70-plus runs over the past three seasons in Philadelphia, much of that had to do with lineup placement and the strong cast in front of him (eg. Trea Turner, Bryce HarperSchwarber).
Castellanos hasn’t walked much and has converted three of his four walk rates since wearing a Phillies uniform. The unifying power he showed with the Tigers, Cubs and Reds before signing in Philadelphia has waned, 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 hit .200 just once for the Phillies, in 2023, when he hit .204. He lost two miles per hour in his batting velocity over the last three seasons and posted below-average numbers against fastballs for the first time in his career in 2025, hitting .236 with a soft .368 percentage against four-seamers.
A club that already has DH at-bats could look to Castellanos, but it’s unlikely anyone will sign him to log significant time in the field. Teams will definitely take note of how his relationship with the Phillies has turned out. For example, Isaac Azout of Fish On First reports that the Marlins, despite lacking an obvious solution at designated hitter, are not interested in bringing Castellanos into the fold.
