Starlin Castro: The Future Yankees Designated Hitter?

Yankees second baseman Starlin Castro has exceeded offensive expectations to begin the new season, but his defensive game leaves a lot to be desired.

It feels like Starlin Castro has been in the big leagues for 15 years. Perhaps that’s what happens when you come up at the tender age of 20, with a ton of potential attached to your name. Seven years later, Castro has continued to show quality with the bat, yet if he hopes to stick around for the long haul with the Yankees, he’ll need to stop making routine errors in the field.

In the seventh inning of a one-run game against the Pirates on Friday night, the three-time All-Star ventured onto the outfield grass to snag an Andrew McCutchen pop-up — only to have the ball pop out of his glove, allowing Jordy Mercer to score all the way from first base on the two-out error.

Pitcher’s are a fickle beast, so it’s no surprise that when the defense lets them down, the floodgates soon open up. Two batters later, another run scored and there was no looking back for the fortunate Buccos.

If you’ve ever played the game of baseball above the little league level, you know as an infielder, that hustling back for a pop-up isn’t the easiest play to make. But if you have enough time to get to the ball, square up and call for it (as Castro did), you must make the play!

After the contest, Castro took full responsibility for costing the Yankees the ballgame. Per NJ Advance Media:

"“It’s my fault,” Castro said. “That’s a play that I should make, especially in a close game like that when you have a chance to win the game in the last two innings.”“It’s kind of a tough moment for me right there because I should make that play,” Castro said. “If that play happened the right way, we got out of that inning because there’s already two outs.”"

The fact of the matter is that no one will ever confuse Castro’s glove with Brandon Crawford‘s of the Giants. Yet at times, Castro invokes memories of another Giant — former Yankee utility player Eduardo Nunez.

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Both have very good throwing arms, solid lateral movement and nine times out of ten make the plays they shouldn’t. The issue, though, is their rock hard hands and inability to make ALL the routine plays.

Perhaps it’s a concentration thing — as most infielders will tell you they’d much rather react to a play than wait for a ball to come to them.

Aside from the Yankees still having Derek Jeter during Nunez’s run with the club, Nunez’s lack of reliability in the field was one of the main reasons the Yankees shipped him off to Minnesota in April of 2014.

There is no doubt Castro is on this team because of his stick. In 62 at-bats this season, the man who was supposed to make Cubs’ fans miss Ernie Banks a bit less, is hitting .371/.409/.565 with four home runs and 10 RBI.

Currently, leading the club with 23 hits, Castro has picked up much of the slack left over by the injury to Didi Gregorius.

At only 27, it’s very possible Castro can still be one of the “veteran” leaders of the Baby Bombers going forward. After all, in 2016, he and Gregorius combined to be the first middle infield in Yankee history to both hit 20 plus homers in the same season.

You have to wonder, though, should Castro’s error totals continue to rise from the two he’s made through 16 games, to somewhere around the 12 he made last season, what position will the Yankees look to hide him at?

With the likes of Gleyber Torres, Jorge Mateo, Tyler Wade, Miguel Andujar and Kyle Holder all biting at the bit to show what they have at the next level, it will be curious to see exactly how much the Yankees value Castro’s bat.

I mean, is it really worth $23M over the next two and a half seasons (before a $16M team option in 2020?) As of now, it is — because none of the kids who play the infield down on the farm are ready. Although, I feel Wade and his versatility could be, sooner rather than later.

Castro isn’t exactly the prototypical designated hitter, but this could honestly be his most valuable position, moving forward — even if the Yankees were to trade him to another AL team, to open salary and a roster spot.

In recent years, the DH spot has been a place for manager Joe Girardi to rotate older players — to give them a break from the rigors of the field. Would Girardi (or another manager) be willing to place one guy there for the majority of the season? And would Castro perform well there?

It’s likely, Matt Holliday won’t be back in 2018, so this is something the team should think long and hard about. Especially if Torres is deemed ready for the majors.

Next: Thames, the Yankee?

Eventually moving Castro to third base seems like the most logical conclusion because it’s a reactionary position — but that means there’s no chance of Andjuar ever getting a shot. Oh, and Manny Machado would have to move to shortstop. Talk about a logjam.