Chicago Cubs Opinion: Four reasons Starlin Castro isn’t going anywhere

His Potential

Jun 13, 2015; Chicago, IL, USA; Chicago Cubs shortstop Starlin Castro (13) and relief pitcher

(30) celebrate Castro

The kid is already making a run a 1,000 hits in this just his sixth season. If you take his career over 20 years which is what most players with 3,000 hits played–he’ll join that club. And that’s with some sub-par seasons. So far in his career, he’s stayed relatively healthy–playing 162 games one season with 125 in his rookie season being the fewest. Have I mentioned he’s only four years older than Russell?

Castro was never going to be a 25 home run guy, never going to knock in 100 runs a year. But he has the uncanny ability to put the ball in play, much like Vladimir Guerrero did for much of his career. It doesn’t mean that he swings at good pitches, but he puts the bad ones in play. He’s had just two bad year’s that he hasn’t done that–and this year isn’t even over.

This has offensively been his worst season with a -0.4 offensive WAR. But his defensive WAR isn’t as bad as it has been. This falls back to Castro has always struggled in the field, but we didn’t notice as much with 160+ hits and a .280 plus average. While everyone thinks he’s getting worse in the field, the fact is he’s the same.

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