The Phillies are thinking about only one thing after falling just short of a World Series title last season. They want to put a ring on it
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PHILADELPHIA — After hitting a double in the fourth inning, Phillies right fielder Nick Castellanos stood on second base, looked toward the home dugout at Citizens Bank Park, and flashed a finger to express his feelings.
“I thought it was his middle finger,” catcher Garrett Stubbs said.
“I did too,” first baseman Jake Cave said.
Castellanos was not, in fact, flipping off anyone in MLB’s primetime national TV spot on Tuesday. He was holding up his ring finger, the symbolism entirely clear when you realize which finger he held skyward.
“That’s why we’re playing this year,” Castellanos said of pursuing a World Series title this October, especially after falling two games short of winning a ring last season. The gesture wasn’t planned. “I just found myself doing it,” he added. “And then after that, I thought, ‘Did I really just do that?’ It just came out.”
The spontaneous celebration highlighted a 2-for-4 night, with Castellanos adding an RBI double in the eighth to give the Phillies their final run in a 4-1 victory in Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series. It was also proof that Castellanos, now in his second season in Philadelphia, is fully comfortable being himself after struggling to adjust to his new team and city last year.
Teammates describe Castellanos as a “vibey dude from Miami” in the wild and sometimes weird world of Philadelphia sports. He has a hilarious knack for hitting home runs at the worst possible time for broadcasters — and he may or may not have memorized Thom Brennaman’s “drive into deep left field” call to recite it for friends and teammates. He believes Scooby Doo is a superhero because “he’s a dog that can talk and helps people by solving mysteries.”
And Castellanos has become the face and exposed chest of the team’s so-called himbo culture, unbuttoning his jersey as low as possible based on MLB’s uniform rules. (The league’s collective bargaining agreement prohibits players from having their uniform tops “unbuttoned below the bottom of the Club logo,” though Castellanos says he is unaware of any such rule.) The casual look has rubbed off on several of his teammates and inspired Pulitzer-worthy investigative journalism.
“He’s just being himself this year,” says Phillies outfielder Brandon Marsh. “He's not putting added pressure onto his shoulders.”
That wasn’t the case a year ago. Before the Phillies shocked the sports world by taking the Houston Astros to Game 6 of the World Series, Castellanos and his team spent most of the season fighting to stay afloat. Led by first-time manager Rob Thomson, who was only at the helm because Joe Girardi had been fired two months into the season, those Phillies were a flawed team.
Their lineup featured two designated hitters in the corner outfield positions — Kyle Schwarber and Castellanos, both in their first seasons with Philly — for a good chunk of the season after Bryce Harper tore the UCL in his throwing elbow and was limited to DH. (Earlier this year, Harper returned from Tommy John surgery in record time, but he has been unable to play right field again, leaving Castellanos to man the position.) Their outfield defense was so rough that they acquired Marsh from the Angels just before the trade deadline, even though he was batting just .226 and striking out in 36.2% of his plate appearances.
The Phillies went 65–46 under Thomson, who loosened the clubhouse by encouraging players to be themselves. They surged to the final wild-card berth and bestowed the moniker, Philly Rob, upon their manager.
Meanwhile, Castellanos was underperforming on the five-year, $100 million contract he’d signed prior to last season. Expectations were especially high after coming off the best season of his career with the Cincinnati Reds. In 2021, he slashed .309/.362/.576 with 34 home runs, was an All-Star and Silver Slugger for the first time, and finished 12th in the MVP voting.
His performance last year was a far cry from that. He slashed .263/.305/.389, and because of his dreadful defensive metrics, was worth 0.0 WAR, according to Baseball-Reference. He performed quite well in April and August, but the rough stretches were particularly long and brutal.
After one game in late July during such a skid, he was asked by a reporter if he had heard the fans booing him following a strikeout. He sarcastically responded, “Nah man, I lost my hearing.” He proceeded to tell the reporter that the question was stupid. The testy exchange continued until a Phillies PR staffer stepped in and prematurely ended the media availability. Considering this is a city where fans only recently learned to give Trea Turner positive reinforcement instead of their native language of boos, the reaction from Castellanos didn’t sit well with fans.
“First off, baseball is a hard enough sport as it is,” Castellanos says. “So if you're uncomfortable with your environment, or you don't know how to get it to help or benefit you, baseball can become much more difficult — as well as the added pressure of playing in a market like Philadelphia, where everything is under a microscope.”
Ironically, it was the heightened intensity of last year’s postseason that helped Castellanos find his footing in Philly. Despite his reputation as a defensive liability, his biggest contributions to the Phillies during that playoff run came with his glove. He made several astonishing web-gem plays, including a game-saving grab in the ninth inning of Game 1 of last year’s World Series, which preserved a 5–5 tie and allowed the Phillies to eventually win.
“Baseball in the postseason has really locked me in,” he said during last year’s World Series. “The honest truth is a lot of times on defense, I struggle with focusing for 162 games. My mind is really fast and wanders, but with this atmosphere, it’s unbelievable. Being locked in on every pitch, I think my jumps, my anticipation, has just gotten better.”
Those surprising snags helped him relax in his new environment, an acclimation that carried over into this year. Though Castellanos still graded out as one of the worst defensive right fielders in baseball with minus-8 defensive runs saved, he was the only NL player to record at least 1,000 innings in the field this season without making an error.
Whatever strides he’s made on defense, though, the Phillies didn’t sign him for his glove. His bat has always been his calling card, and aside from two slumps this season, he has lived up to those expectations. He hit .276 with 29 home runs and a career-high 106 RBIs, earning his second All-Star nod.
If Castellanos were to have given anyone the middle finger on Tuesday night, it likely would have been directed toward the Miami Marlins in the visitors’ dugout.
Castellanos, 31, grew up in Miami and always dreamed of playing for the Marlins. He’s publicly said in the past that’s where he wanted to land as a free agent after the 2021 season.
It’s where his 10-year-old son from a previous relationship, Liam, lives with his mother, and where most of his other family members live. It’s where he thought he would spend much of the remaining years of his career. At the time, his wife Jess was pregnant with their son Otto, who was born in May 2022, and Castellanos had wanted his two boys to grow up together.
The Marlins expressed interest, at least until the MLB lockout put everything on hold. When free agency started back up in mid-March after a 99-day work stoppage, Miami turned its attention elsewhere.
He’s at peace with how things have turned out, and his top priority is now beating his hometown team one more time to send the Phillies to the Division Series against the rival Atlanta Braves.
In the Phillies’ clubhouse after Tuesday night’s game, a few players were considering a different Castellanos what-if. What would have happened if Castellanos had actually given his teammates the middle finger?
“I would’ve flipped him off back,” Cave said.
Stubbs responded, “I’m sure Philly would’ve loved it.”