Did the Chicago Cubs miss out on a Castro pay day?

Rumors have been linked to the Chicago Cubs’ Starlin Castro for a few seasons now and the rumors probably hit its peak in the off-season when the New York Mets seemed to be very anxious to acquire the talents of the Cubs’ All-Star shortstop.

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The trade talks between the Cubs and the Mets seemed to be at a point where something was eventually going to happen, but it never happened. Who’s the reason for that?

Well, it is hard to know, probably you could say a little of both. The Mets were trying to underpay for a player they really wanted but at the same time, not wanting to part with any of their highly touted pitching prospects. Meanwhile, the Cubs probably had a very high price tag attached to Castro, and rightfully so.

This resulted in the Cubs being hesitant to pull the trigger on any trade that involved Castro considering the value he held at the time.

Castro, a career .280 hitter with the Cubs, is known for how good of a professional hitter he. Unfortunately for the Cubs and Castro, he’s also known for being distracted on the field and committing too many errors and mental lapses on the with his glove and on the base path.

Castro, to his credit, is also a three-time All-Star, and has shown some flashes of how good he could be on the field defensively when his head is in the game, best of all – he’s only 25-years-old with six years of playing experience under his belt.

When the Chicago Cubs called up Addison Russell – who is thought to be the heir apparent to the shortstop position for the future Chicago Cubs – many (yours truly) thought that Castro would take this as a challenge and return to his all-star form and begin hitting in the .300 area again, while driving in runs.

That hasn’t happened.

So you have to wonder if the Cubs maybe missed the big payday that could have been attached to Castro in a trade.

This year Castro is batting a mere .241 with only five home runs, and 39 runs driven in. He is being moved all around in the order to try to get him out of his hitting funk, but nothing seems to be working for him.

If the Cubs were to sell now on him, some team might be finding themselves a really good buy-low deal. For that reason, I doubt the Cubs would shop him around right now.

The hope of Castro being able to turn things around and finish the season strong while helping the Cubs make a playoff push would add a considerable amount of value to Castro for the Cubs. If that could happen, the first trade that the Cubs see that would bring the type of value Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have been looking for – I think you’ll find Castro would be on the next plane out-of-town.

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