{"id":409605,"date":"2026-01-15T22:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409605\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T22:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T22:22:07","slug":"rockies-to-sign-willi-castro-to-two-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/409605\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockies To Sign Willi Castro To Two-Year Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rockies and utility player Willi Castro<\/a> have agreed to a two-year deal, reports Jorge Castillo of ESPN<\/a>. The ISE Baseball client will be guaranteed $12.8MM, reports Robert Murray of FanSided<\/a>. Colorado has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move to make this official.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Castro, 29 in April, just finished a strong three-year run as one of the better multi-positional players in the sport. That run ended with a deep slump just before he hit free agency but he has still secured a nice deal for himself.<\/p>\n

He was non-tendered by the Tigers after the 2022 season and then landed with the Twins via a minor league deal ahead of the 2023 campaign. That minor league pact turned into a huge win for Minnesota. Castro cracked the Opening Day roster in 2023 and went on to have a strong season, getting into 124 games and stepping to the plate 409 times. The switch-hitter launched nine home runs and drew walks at an 8.3% clip. His .257\/.339\/.411 batting line led to a 107 wRC+, indicating he was seven percent above average at the plate overall. He also stole 33 bases in 38 attempts.<\/p>\n

Defensively, he bounced all around the diamond, spending time in all three outfield spots and the three infield positions to the left of first base. He got strong marks almost everywhere the Twins put him. He even got a few mop-up appearances on the mound. The total package added up to 2.5 wins above replacement on the season, according to FanGraphs.<\/p>\n

His 2024 season ended up being quite similar. He slashed .247\/.331\/.385 for a 106 wRC+, swiped 14 bags and played every position except for catcher and first base. His fWAR total nudged up to 2.9 in slightly more playing time.<\/p>\n

Last year, he was on essentially the same pace through the trade deadline. He got into 86 games for the Twins, had a .245 \/.335 \/.407 batting line, 109 wRC+, and nine stolen bases while moving all around.<\/p>\n

The Twins fell out of the race and pivoted to selling at the deadline. They flipped Castro to the Cubs for minor league pitchers\u00a0Ryan Gallagher<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Sam Armstrong<\/a>. Castro\u2019s performance plummeted after the swap. He slashed .170\/.245\/.240 for a wRC+ of just 40. He wasn\u2019t helped by a .222 batting average on balls in play but the Cubs scaled back his playing time regardless. He only started two of the final 11 games of the regular season. He appeared in two playoff games for the Cubs but without getting sent to the plate.<\/p>\n

That was unfortunate timing, with Castro just heading to the open market, but it was also only 110 plate appearances. It seemed possible that clubs would still value his versatility and would focus more on the positives of that three-year run, overlooking the poor finish. At the beginning of the offseason, MLBTR predicted<\/a> Castro for a two-year, $14MM deal. In December, it was reported<\/a> that Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Colorado were interested in Castro. The Rockies have landed him by giving him a solid two-year deal just below MLBTR\u2019s prediction.<\/p>\n

The Rockies don\u2019t have a lot of certainty on their roster, which is to be expected for a team that just lost 119 games, getting to the century mark in the loss column for a third straight year. They tried bolstering the roster last winter with veteran utility signings. They gave Thairo Estrada<\/a> $4MM and Kyle Farmer<\/a> $3.25MM, both on one-year deals. Neither panned out. Estrada was injured for most of the year and hit just .253\/.285\/.370 in the 39 games he was able to play. Farmer avoided the injured list but put up an even less impressive line of .227\/.280\/.365.<\/p>\n

Ideally, Castro will move past his struggles with the Cubs and return to form. Where he plays will depend upon what happens with the other young players on the Colorado roster. The outfield playing time will likely be divvied up to some combination of Brenton Doyle<\/a>, Jake McCarthy<\/a>, Mickey Moniak<\/a> and Jordan Beck<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ezequiel Tovar<\/a> will be the regular at shortstop but the rest of the infield is fairly wide open. Adael Amador<\/a> could play second but he also has just 164 big league plate appearances with a .176\/.242\/.250 line. Third baseman Kyle Karros<\/a> got 156 plate appearances last year but hit just .226\/.308\/.277. Tyler Freeman<\/a> will be in the mix somewhere as another multi-positional guy but he\u2019s also coming off a subpar season. Ryan Ritter<\/a> can also bounce around a bit but he has a .241\/.296\/.337 line in his 207 big league appearances.<\/p>\n

With the Rockies so far from contention, they will be focused on development and will want to have playing time open for anyone in that group who earns it. Castro will likely change positions throughout the year depending on the health and performance of all those other guys. If his offense gets back to where it was during his time in Minnesota, then the Rockies will likely make him available on the trade block this summer, as they aren\u2019t likely to return to contention during the course of this contract.<\/p>\n

RosterResource<\/a> now estimates the Rockies for a payroll of $110MM, assuming the money on this deal is equally distributed across the two years. They spent $124MM on last year\u2019s club and could still have some powder dry if they\u2019re planning for a similar level of spending this year. Earlier this month, general manager Josh Byrnes expressed a desire to add a couple of veterans to the rotation. They have since signed Michael Lorenzen<\/a> but could still have room for one more starter. It\u2019s also possible to see room for some relief pitchers or perhaps another infielder.<\/p>\n

For clubs who missed on Castro, the free agent market still features a couple of other utility guys, including Isiah Kiner-Falefa<\/a>, Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas<\/a>, Adam Frazier<\/a>, Enrique Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a>, Jon Berti<\/a>, Jorge Mateo<\/a> and others.<\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Jordan Godfree, Matt Blewett, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rockies and utility player Willi Castro have agreed to a two-year deal, reports Jorge Castillo of ESPN.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99,26059],"class_list":{"0":"post-409605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-willi-castro"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}