CINCINNATI — The Reds have been in the thick of the National League Wild Card race while the Tigers have been celebrating Miguel Cabrera’s 500th home run and chase for 3,000 hits. But Nick Castellanos has been following.
“I was present to that,” Castellanos said. “That’s history, and Miggy is one of my favorite teammates I’ve ever had.”
Castellanos was a Tiger for 107 of Cabrera’s 502 career homers. He was called up for the stretch run in 2013, when Cabrera finished atop the American League in batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage while playing the stretch run with a groin tear. He saw Cabrera play out the 2014 season on a broken foot, then come back to win a fourth batting title in 2015. He saw injuries catch up to Cabrera in the years that followed, then watched Cabrera battle through chronic knee pain to play out 2019.
Castellanos was happy to see Cabrera get some much-deserved appreciation with cheering crowds and packed seats at Comerica Park last month, both for Cabrera and the game.
“That should show the league how important players are to baseball still,” Castellanos said Saturday, “that you can’t live and die by analytical formulas and expect a city or people to relate to that. If there is anything that Miggy’s quest to 500 should tell you, it’s that players are important to the game. They put the [butts] in the seats.”
In an ideal world, Castellanos would’ve been there for it. He had dreamed of being a longtime Tiger in the way Cabrera has been, dreaming of becoming the next-generation slugger in Detroit. Castellanos’ emergence as the fulcrum of the Tigers’ offense as he approached his prime years coincided with Cabrera’s battle with injuries as he entered his mid-30s.
Unfortunately for Castellanos, it also coincided with the start of the Tigers’ rebuild as the front office tackled the problem of not having enough young talent to go with Castellanos to field a contending team. While Castellanos enjoyed a breakout season in 2017, including 26 homers, an AL-high 10 triples and a career-best 101 RBIs, the Tigers embarked on their rebuild, trading Justin Verlander, Justin Upton, Alex Avila and Justin Wilson for prospects.
Castellanos’ star years in Detroit came as Detroit was looking down the road. And as Castellanos neared free agency, the Tigers weren’t close enough to the other side of the rebuild to view him as a key part of their plans.
“It’s the nature of the business,” Castellanos said. “Where I was [there] in ’19, they didn’t feel like I was a piece they could build around. At the end of the day, all that did was put a little more gas on the fire.”
While Castellanos finished out the 2019 season as a star in a playoff chase with the Cubs, propelling him into free agency, the Tigers finished out a 114-loss season. Detroit used the first overall pick the following summer on slugger Spencer Torkelson, now one of the key offensive prospects to build out the middle of its lineup at some point next season.
It’s a difficult cycle that can be tougher on players caught in the middle. While Castellanos is now leading the Reds toward a potential postseason berth and feels validated in his free-agent move to Cincinnati last year, the Tigers hope to use their summer success as a step toward potential contention in 2022.
“The validation is I was right in believing in myself and who I am as a player,” Castellanos said. “It’s true, man, when you have great players and the organization is in a time period where winning is not a priority, the culture can affect the spirit of the individual who is going out and playing every day.”
The two ends of the Castellanos trade nearly met on Saturday. Tigers starter Matthew Boyd struck out his former teammate to finish his fourth and final inning in the 7-4 loss. Alex Lange, one of the two pitching prospects the Tigers acquired from the Cubs for Castellanos, entered in the fifth and pitched a scoreless inning in relief.