Surprising Landing Spot for Nick Castellanos, Whose Outfield Days May Be Over

It took only a couple of days for Nick Castellanos to find a new home. He's reportedly shifting across the country and from outfield to infield to play for the San Diego Padres.

Castellanos has agreed to a one-year deal with the Padres, according to Dennis Lin of The Athletic, who adds that Castellanos will play first base and DH.

The deal, unsurprisingly, is for the major-league minimum of $780,000, per Jon Heyman. The Phillies will pay the other $19,220,000 remaining on Castellanos' contract.

Several other teams had a more pressing need for a right-handed-hitting outfielder — notably the Guardians, Twins, Rays, Rangers and Red Sox — but it appears the Padres will take a chance on Castellanos as a platoon first baseman with lefty Gavin Sheets. San Diego has three stud defenders in its outfield: Ramon Laureano, Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr.

Surprising fit

Castellanos has never played first base in the major or minor leagues. He's reached the point, though, where he's no longer playable defensively in the outfield on a regular basis. The advanced metrics pegged him as the worst outfielder in baseball in 2025.

Castellanos said in his handwritten explanation of last June's Miami incident that he remains "obsessed with winning." In that sense, it shouldn't be a surprise that he opted for the Padres over bottom-tier teams that may have also had openings.

The Phillies will get a healthy dose of Castellanos around Memorial Day with three games in San Diego May 25-27 and three at home June 2-4.

Lack of a trade market

The Phils tried all winter to trade Castellanos, and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told reporters this week that there were times early in the offseason when they thought a deal could be struck. They were holding out all along for modest salary relief. Based on Dombrowski's comments, it seems the Phils may have been able to find a trade if they accepted paltry savings early in the offseason, but the team(s) interested moved in other directions.

Either way, they were never going to get much of anything in a trade. All 29 other front offices saw how committed the Phillies were to finding Castellanos a change of scenery and removing the distraction by spring training. They officially pulled the plug on Thursday, four days before the first full-squad workout in Clearwater.

Looking to bounce back

Petco Park is not a fun place to hit, especially at night when the marine layer suppresses deep flyballs. Castellanos has not performed well in San Diego, hitting .228/.264/.366 with two doubles and four home runs in 106 plate appearances. Other ballparks certainly could have been more conducive to a bounce-back season that helps him reestablish free-agent value. The flipside is that the Padres' lineup offers more protection and run production opportunities than most others.

Castellanos spent four seasons with the Phillies and hit .260/.306/.426 for an OPS+ of 100, exactly league-average. When you factor in the defensive issues, it was a disappointment, even though he made an All-Star team with a big first half in 2023 and played all 162 games in 2024. The line in professional sports is so thin. One big hit in the 2022 World Series or a few more good nights in the 2023 playoffs — when he homered five times in three games then finished 0-for-20 — and Castellanos' entire legacy here would have been different.

He couldn't become the consistent right-handed doubles machine and run producer the Phillies thought they were signing for $100 million over five years. He hit 104 doubles combined in 2018 and '19. He had 38 doubles and 34 homers in his final year before free agency but never reached those marks with the Phils. His OPS as a Phillie was 82 points lower than it was with the Tigers, Cubs and Reds.

The Phils moved on early in the offseason when they signed Adolis Garcia to a one-year, $10 million contract. Like Castellanos, Garcia is an over-aggressive free swinger, but at the very least the Phillies know they'll see an improvement with their right field speed and defense.