White Sox should not bring back Welington Castillo

Welington Castillo has spent each of the past two seasons with the Chicago White Sox. However, the team should move on from him ahead of the 2020 season. 

Welington Castillo has largely served as the backup catcher for the Chicago White Sox in 2019, hitting .208/.269/.398 with 10 home runs and 36 RBI.

That gives him a 75 OPS+ and -0.3 bWAR. According to Baseball Prospectus, Castillo ranks 109th out of 110 catchers in all of baseball in FRAA (field runs above average) with -13.6 this season.

Those statistics, both offensively and defensively, suggest that the catcher is not a worthwhile investment just in general. At best, he’s a mediocre backup catcher.

Prior to the 2018 season, Castillo signed a two-year, $15 million contract with an $8 million option for the 2020 season as detailed by Spotrac.

At $8 million, he is absolutely not worth the trouble and the team would be much better off looking elsewhere to find another catcher.

James McCann has clearly established himself as the starting catcher for next season and possibly much longer, meaning the team would only need to find a serviceable backup capable of giving McCann rest a day or two per week.

With the cost it would take to keep Castillo, the team would be much better off buying out his contract for $500,000 and using at most a third of the $7.5 million in savings to sign a new backup catcher.

As for the rest of the money, that can be used to fill other holes on the roster as the team gears up to compete in 2020.

The White Sox would be much better off using that savings to acquire another bench player or even use it to offer the extra $3-$5 million per year to land a star in free agency.

Given the fact that Castillo will likely not have a robust market in the slightest, the team could possibly look to even bring the catcher on a minor-league deal to improve their depth behind the dish.

That would be fine, but there is no scenario that it would make sense for the Chicago White Sox to bring back Welington Castillo at his current price or with any guaranteed role.