Not Every Day a Starlin Rises
At some point yesterday afternoon, I decided that I wanted to look into Starlin Castro on a historical basis. I go to Baseball-Reference and enter the filters required to get the desired results from the Play Index tool — notably shortstops, age 20, who played in at least 50 games and played at least 50% of those games at short. Nothing too strict, really, and naturally that query only returned 22 seasons. That within itself should give the impression of how rare Castro’s situation is.
Actually, we’ve been spoiled with 20-year-old shortstops: Castro this year, Elvis Andrus last, Jose Lopez in 2004, and Jose Reyes in 2003. If you reach into the 1990s, you have Edgar Renteria and Alex Rodriguez, with Gary Sheffield missing by a year. Between 1930 and 1950, only one joined the ranks (Arky Vaughan) – presumably the whole World War thing played into it – and it wasn’t until the 1970s when this sort of thing became an every-few-years phenomenon.
The question of importance is how Castro is performing against his peers. The answer is quite well. Throw out Rodriguez’s ridiculous 36 home runs, 1.045 OPS season in ’96 and Castro stacks up well against everyone else. Obviously, OPS+ is not the best measure of hitting performance in the world, but it does a worthwhile job here:
Rodriguez 160 OPS+
Vaughan 113
Jim Fregosi 108
Reyes 102
Travis Jackson 102
Whitey Witt 100
Castro 95
Garry Templeton 91
Everyone else had OPS+ below 90, including Ed Brinkman in 1962: he played in 54 games and his OPS+ was a mere 25. Nonetheless, Castro is in good company. Rodriguez is bound to join Vaughan and Jackson in the Hall of Fame, and Fregosi as well as Templeton appeared in numerous All-Star games. Truthfully, there are worse careers to mimic than Witt’s too. Sure, he was out of the league shortly after turning 31, but he appeared in more than 1,130 games and had a career OPS+ of 97.
Moreover, he had a name to compete with Starlin DeJesus Castro, too, as he was born Ladislav Waldemar Wittkowski.
Ladislav is the only guy ahead of him on that list who didn’t have a 6.0 WAR season and a 50 WAR career (Reyes should get there). Not too shabby.
meh…tiny sample size
What was the point of this article? Water cooler commentary? It all seems like loose and random fluff or filler. Fangraphs almost always offers more in an analysis or article. So pointless that people aren’t even posting in support or opposition. No opportunity to agree, expand, question, speculate, etc…
One of the few and infrequent disappointing reads you’ll find on this site.
I think the more interesting thing is how he’s been lately. He had a massive struggle hitting in June. I think a .222wOBA but made an adjustment on pitches down and away from him. He had been killing them into the dirt, chopper after chopper into the dirt with a helicopter swing. But he did something and has turned those pitches into line drives and he’s been smoking hot since. Two more doubles today in five at bats. And his OPS is up to .775ish after having bottomed out at about .651 on June 24th.
It was .250wOBA my apologies.
“What was the point of this article? Water cooler commentary? It all seems like loose and random fluff or filler. Fangraphs almost always offers more in an analysis or article. So pointless that people aren’t even posting in support or opposition. No opportunity to agree, expand, question, speculate, etc…
One of the few and infrequent disappointing reads you’ll find on this site.”
Completely agree.
This article was at least good for one thing: WHAT??? GARY SHEFFIELD WAS A SHORTSTOP??
And to assume that ARod is a sure-fire HOFer. Not so much a given anymore.
ARod is a sure fire HOFer, you’re ridiculous
Bill James explored this question in his rankings of the top 100 at each position, wondering about how often guys come up at young ages (I think he was looking at 22 year old 2nd basemen) and have what appear to be unremarkable offensive seasons that are really indicators of future excellence.
I like the kid, and the point is he for real or not. He is hard to judge as he came out with the record breaking 6RBI game then started to offensively sputter getting down to .260 BA 310 OBP. Now, he is really starting to contribute on a daily basis with offense. He defense is absolutely bad, bad, bad, BAD. His walk rate and OBP need to go up, and he needs to keep working on his defense. The Cubs do not need another Shawon Dunston sitting at short for the next 12 years.
I don’t get why his defense is ‘absolutely bad, bad, bad, BAD’
I bet you have 2 Juan Pierre SBs and a game against the Marlins as your Exhibits A thru Z.
There’s obviously a lot of back and forth about defensive metrics these days, but the guy’s UZR/150 is 7.4. That puts him slightly ahead of Elvis Andrus, and certainly among the league leaders in MLB at SS this season. Again, don’t take this as me saying UZR/150 is the end all/be all – but I think it’s just plain incorrect to suggest his fielding is somehow a deficient skill.
The other offensive items you note are like saying the weather needs to keep warming up as summer gets closer. The guy is 20. Most kids his age are at high A. However, if I may, why are you sweating his BB% when he is only south of Rafael Furcal (who is playing out of his mind) for LD%? Walks are great, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t care if he didn’t draw a Base on Balls if he hit a double instead. He’s middle of the pack for BB% so it’s not like he’s Ryan Theriot. That .340 BABIP isn’t as illegitimate as it seems when you consider all the line drives he’s hitting.
I’m not sure what statistic you’re getting that Castro is “bad, bad, bad, BAD” on defense from? Is he making too many errors? Yes, but fielding percentage isn’t a great indiciator of defensive ability.
First, he doesn’t have enough repetitions in the field for anyone to really make any statement about his defense except for: he had a a rough first 5 games defensively (5 errors in the first 5) and has continued to be a little too mistake prone with 9 errors since then.
Second, while we don’t have enough repetitions for UZR to be very accurate, his UZR is currently a 2.6, which says that he’s been above average over his time with the Cubs. I have not been able to find his +/- score.
I think we know the exact same things about Starlin Castro’s defense that we did at the beginning of the season: athletically gifted, he’ll get to a lot of balls and has a strong arm, but he’ll also make some mistakes.
I also don’t see how he’s anything like Shawon Dunston at the plate. Castro’s 20 walks in 1/3 of a season are more than Dunston put together in all but 3 of his full seasons. Castro’s current .349 OBP is better than anything Dunston ever put up over a full season. Dunston was a swing out of his shoes type of guy. Castro definitely is not. Would it be good if Castro walked more? Yes. But comparing Castro to Dunston would be like comparing Brett Jackson to Corey Patterson.
You should’ve changed the name of the article to “How Castro compares to other players at the same age based on one stat–with no real analysis!”
comical to think Castro’s defense is bad.
The point is that 20-year-old shortstops who play every day and have a reasonable OPS+ (Starlin finished with a 97) are going to be very likely to be good-to-great. If he was 21, we might be comparing him to Sonny Jackson, but he was 20 and so it becomes Travis Jackson! I am not a Cubs fan. Nevertheless we see a young kid with good range and some sting in the bat (39 XBH in 463 AB) to whom the league adjusted and he then adjusted back. His errors were too numerous but having plus range in an unfamiliar league will mean better times ahead. As a number two hitter he will see more fastballs as a rule and good players hit fastballs best.
As BIll James would point out, great players nearly always make it to the majors on or before their 22nd birthday. A 20-year-old who plays every day with a modicum of success is more likely to be an all-star within three years than a flop. Simple thoughts, but noteworthy if you are drafting in a keeper league.