I'm not putting the guy in the HOF for pete's sake.
But for a little perspective......at the end of this season, at 24 years old, Castro will have over 850 career hits. 17 men have had more. Many of them in the HOF.
My point is not that he is the world's greatest hitter or that he is headed to Cooperstown. But I am simply asking for a little perspective before we assume everyone / anyone will automatically be better.
This stat kind of bugs me. You're not the first to make it so don't think I'm going after you. It's just poor context. The problem with it is that most players aren't up in the majors until 22 or 23. Take Bryant for example. He's arguably the best prospect in the game right now and may not see the majors until he's 23.5(turns 23 in jan). Does that mean Castro is a better hitter than Bryant? Of course not.
Ultimately, Castro has been a career .282/.322/.409 hitter. What that hit stat says about him is that he's been promoted early and he's been healthy. He has a grand total of 1 200 hit season. If you contrast him with Ichiro who's known as a great hitter, Ichiro started his career with 10 straight 200 hit seasons. That's a some what biased comparison because Ichiro was 27 when he got to the majors but I'm just using it to illustrate the point that what Castro is doing isn't unheard of. If you look at qualified players since 1950, out of 2255 players Castro ranks 761st in terms of OBP. If you look at average he's obviously better but you're still talking 189th. Even if you narrow that down to SS, he's 99th and 22nd respectively with Carlos Guillen one step ahead of him in average and Ryan Theriot four steps behind. Even if you prefer to throw around wOBA, Castro is 60th there out of SS's.
I don't want to give the impression that I hate Castro as some have taken my previous comments. My problem is people pretty liberally throw around the HOF term when it comes to Castro. I'm not saying you in particular TL but I've seen it mentioned in conversations. Castro is a decidedly good player. And I mean that as literally as I can. There's no area where you can say he's been decidedly great. He's stole some bases but not enough to be great there. He's hit some HRs but he's not A-Rod or Nomar there. He's hit for decent average but again, not the best. If Castro is to eventually make the HOF you're likely talking about longevity being his greatest asset.
People can and have argued that he's only 24 and just think what he'll be when he hits his prime of 27-32. The problem with that is his average has actually gotten worse from his early years going from .300 to .307 to .283 to .245 to .276 this year. His walk rate hasn't really improved so he's unlikely to ever see much improvement there(5.7% in 2010 vs 6.2% this year). He has added power to his game this year but at 20-25 HR this year I really don't see him adding more than that unless he gets some Bonds style roids. So, overall I feel like people see that he's 24 and think well most 24 year olds are just at the beginning of their talent. In reality, most 24 year olds have 1 maybe 2 seasons in the majors where as this is Castro's 5th. The adjustments players usually make Castro already has. For better or worse, the Castro we see today is likely the player he will be give or take at 27-32.
Overall, that's a pretty good player but I struggle to see him as a cornerstone piece. He's more of the secondary type pieces you need in order to be a good team. As an example, I see him as a similar level player to someone like Jason Varitek to use the Red Sox from the past decade as an example. When you think of those teams, you don't think Varitek. You think Manny, Ortiz, Schilling and Pedro. Those were the "cornerstone" guys. However, Varitek was a pretty damn good player and important to their success.
