Jose Castillo

2005 stats: .268/.307/.416 with 11 homers and 30 XBH in 393 PA
2006 ZiPS: .277/.325/.394 with 10 homers and 28 SBH in 468 PA

Time for one of the most intriguing Pirates of 2006, Jose Castillo. Since he's only going to be 25 next year and he's shown pretty good power both last year and in the minors and has long been considered to be one of those "high ceiling guys." He was hitting the ball well last year and was greatly improved over 2004 before his knee injury. He needs to walk more, but he cut his strikeouts by 33 year in a similar amount of at-bats he had in '04, showing an improvement in plate discipline. The mystifying thing is the drop in his ZiPS for next year. It would seem hard to believe that a 25 year old who is supposed to be completely healthy (the ZiPS don't take injury into account, I don't think) would drop off in performance like they predict Castillo too.

I'll be the first to admit, I was not a huge Castillo fan in 2004. He shows flashes of brillance both at the plate and in the field, but he also has more than his share of mental lapses in both spots too. He's kind of like a milder, less talented version of Aramis Ramirez v. 2001. I'm not positive, but I think his BB/PA ration was very similar to Sausage Boy Randall Simon himself (the least disciplined hitter I think I've ever seen). That being said, I was pretty impressed with the improvements he made last year. His fielding (range and reaction time specifically) improved vastly, as did his offensive numbers and as long as he can keep his head in the game (his injury seemed to me to be a direct result of his not paying attention and thus not getting off second base fast enough, allowing Luna to slide right into him, though the resulting stupidity between the Bucs and the Cardinals that culminated in Lloyd and Perry attacking Dave Duncan in the bullpen was probably the final straw that got Lloyd fired, so maybe I should be thankful for it) I think that's going to continue. I can't imagine he's going to dip off like the ZiPS predict him to, I'm going to say .275/.315/.430. I doubt he'll get to that 20 homer plateau the Bucs are looking for, but I'd say 15-18 might not be out of the question. I'd be more looking for the number of doubles he hits to increase somewhat significantly from 16 to somewhere in the mid 20s.