Ranking The Rockies: 49 Miguel Castro

We at BSN Denver are running a series where we rank how valuable each of the Rockies’ 51 players was to the team in 2015. Value was calculated by statistics, viewing, and how memorable each player’s contributions were. The rankings will be from last to first, you may view the full rankings (here).

Player: Miguel Castro

Stats: (With the Rockies) 5 G, 5.1 IP, 10.13 ERA, 1.875 WHIP, FIP 8.01, ERA+ 49, BF 26, H 6, BB 4, K 6, WAR -0.2

Big Moment: July 27th, Castro is dealt with Jeff Hoffman, Jesus Tinoco, and Jose Reyes from the Toronto Blue Jays to the Colorado Rockies for Troy Tulowitzki. Castro a 20 year old, had started the year as the Jays’ closer going four for six in save opportunities recording a 4.38 ERA in 12.1 innings. This was a bit crazy considering he played a majority of the 2014 season in low A ball as a starter. Castro reached high A at the tail end of his season getting one start and one relief appearance. Some grade Castro as a top 100 prospect in baseball, MLB.com has him as the Rockies’ 10th best prospect, while Fangraphs’ Kiley McDaniel grades Castro to be a mid-rotaiton starter to a closer in the future.

Season Recap: Castro mainly pitched in AAA this year, which would’ve been a crazy jump for the young pitcher let alone jumping to the majors. Yet his dominance in spring training left little doubt for the Jays’ to use Castro in their weak bullpen. Once moving back down to AAA Buffalo, he was made a starter where he struggled promoting his demotion straight to High A Dunedin. There he was made back into a reliever and after only three appearances he was promoted straight to Buffalo. When the Tulo trade happened he went to the Rockies’ AAA affiliate the Albuquerque Isotopes. In 11 games with the Topes Castro allowed only three earned runs over 13.2 innings. His final minors line for the year was 27 games pitched, five starts, 2.82 ERA, 1.357 WHIP, 4.7 BB/9, 8.9 K/9, three wins, and three losses.

What’s Ahead: You can’t stress enough how young Castro is, he was young for the league while in High A this year, and he already has pitched 15 big league innings. His walk rate thus far has been alarming, if he can find a way to keep that down without losing his strikeout capabilities good things are ahead for him. He has a plus fastball with a solid change up/slider mix, which plays perfectly for Coors Field and Castro looks to factor in for the Rockies’ future. The question is, what is Castro’s future, is it as a starter or as a reliever, that is something that will be determined this offseason.