Yankees: 3 previous desired trade targets who are performing horribly in 2021

2. Luis Castillo

Once upon a time we really thought Cincinnati Reds starter Luis Castillo was the perfect acquisition for the Yankees. He has ace-type stuff. He’s young. He’s still under club control. Just trade two top-five prospects for him and be done with it, right? That’s certainly what we were angling for months ago.

But through three starts in 2021, Castillo’s velocity is somehow declining, and he owns a 7.04 ERA and 1.44 WHIP in his first three starts. He’s averaged just five innings pitched so far, which wouldn’t really be helping the Yankees’ rotation much at all right now. He does have one scoreless seven-inning outing against the lowly Pittsburgh Pirates, but he was absolutely tagged by the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants.

That could be attributed to his velocity, which is the lowest it’s been since 2018. He has just 12 strikeouts in 15.1 innings pitched. That shouldn’t be the case for a an ever-improving 28-year-old, especially with last year’s abbreviated workload. And he’s got a top offense behind him!

Things will no doubt turn around for Castillo, who could still be a coveted target at this year’s trade deadline, but if Yankees fans were throwing baseballs on the field Friday night because they couldn’t deal with losing, we don’t even want to think about what would be happening if the team had traded a number of promising prospects only to watch Castillo get bludgeoned during this awful April.