DETROIT – The Detroit Tigers have only played six games this season, but Nicholas Castellanos has already emerged as a possible breakout candidate in 2018.
At 26 years old, Castellanos was already primed for a great season, but through the first week, he's already got 10 hits and three extra-base hits. He ranks fifth in MLB in hits and 12th in OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage), at 1.025.
Recommended Videos
This hot start for Castellanos hasn't been a fluke. While he's always been excellent in terms of hard contact, he's been on another level through 26 at-bats in 2018.
Last season
Castellanos was the victim of some bad luck last season, as he improved his hard-hit rate by more than 10 percent but finished 14 points below his career batting average on balls in play.
What does that mean? In short, hard-hit rate is the percentage of a batter's balls in play that are hit at a standard that's deemed to be excellent contact. Batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, is a player's batting average only considering balls that are put in the field of play, which excludes home runs and strikeouts.
Typically, once a player establishes his hard-hit rate and BABIP, he'll finish in the same area a majority of the time. A player with a higher hard-hit rate will usually have a higher BABIP because they're putting the ball in play with more authority.
But the opposite was the same with Castellanos last season. Despite a career-high 43.4 percent hard-hit rate, he finished with a career-low .313 BABIP. Part of that is because Castellanos hit 26 home runs, which were likely hard-hit but didn't count in his BABIP, but he was also burned by bad luck and the cavernous Comerica Park on long fly balls.
Still, Castellanos had a solid offensive season in 2017, finishing with 36 doubles, 26 homers and an .810 OPS.
Hot start to 2018
Castellanos' metrics were excellent last season, but they've been even better through six games in 2018.
So far, Castellanos has yet to hit his first home run, but he has a pair of triples and a double in 26 at-bats. An incredible 55 percent of his balls in play have been hit hard, and only 5 percent have been weak contact.
His 55 percent hard-hit rate is more than 11 percent better than last season's career high, and his 5 percent weak contact rate is more than 6 percent better than last season.
Obviously, these numbers aren't sustainable across an entire season, but the hot start validates the steady improvement Castellanos has made the last three seasons. If he mirrors last year's hard- and soft-contact rates, chances are he'll be an All-Star caliber player.
Castellanos is batting .385 this season because he's hitting more line drives and fewer fly balls. He's never had a line drive rate of 30 percent, but so far 40 percent of his balls in play have been line drives. It's also worth noting that he's hit twice as many ground balls as fly balls, which explains his high average and no home runs.
It's way too early to make assumptions about Castellanos' entire season, and the Tigers haven't exactly played a tough string of starting pitchers. But it's gone about as well as could be expected so far.
The Tigers don't have Justin Upton, Ian Kinsler or J.D. Martinez this season, so Castellanos will be counted on for much more production in the middle of the order. If he continues to hit the ball hard at an elite rate, he'll live up to the reputation that made him the Tigers' top prospect for several years.
/**/