Nick Castellanos Outshines the Gold Glover

If you’ve been watching the playoffs, you’ve likely heard at least one broadcaster call Houston right fielder Kyle Tucker underrated. In Game 1 of the World Series, Tucker did his best to remedy the situation, blasting home runs in his first two at-bats. On Monday, MLB announced that after two years as a Gold Glove finalist, Tucker had finally won the award. Still, he’s not the right fielder everyone’s talking about:

Nick Castellanos stole Tucker’s thunder not once but twice, saving Game 1 with a sliding catch, and making a nearly identical play on the first pitch of Game 3. As if that wasn’t enough, the World Series’ third-most talked about play in right field didn’t belong to Tucker either:

Tucker had to settle for the fourth-most notable right field play of the series, making a Kyle Schwarber blast that fell a foot short of being a home run look extremely routine in the eighth inning of Game 2.

Let’s take a look at the two right fielders in the World Series: the one with the Gold Glove and the one who’s getting all the love. The major defensive metrics paint a very clear picture:

In every single column, Tucker is above average and Castellanos is below average. Castellanos is getting so much ink in part because he’s the last person anyone expected to provide sparkling defense. As Mike Petriello noted at MLB.com, “his four best plays of 2022 have all come since the playoffs began.” You likely know that Castellanos is only in right field because injuries to Bryce Harper kept him out of the designated hitter spot, but the truth about his defense is very stark indeed.

There’s no nice way to say this: Since his debut in 2013, by both DRS and UZR, Nick Castellanos has been the worst defender in baseball. Since the introduction of Outs Above Average in 2016, only Didi Gregorius has rated worse. By OAA, Castellanos was either the worst or the second-worst right fielder in baseball in each of the last three years. The only worse right fielder this year was Gold Glove finalist Juan Soto.

Another factor that made Castellanos suddenly catching baseballs such a fun story is that he told reporters that he gets bad jumps during the regular season because his mind tends to wander when he’s in the outfield. (Stephanie Apstein’s article on the subject is highly recommended for anyone who has ever wondered about Castellanos’ innermost thoughts.) Statcast certainly agrees that his jumps leave something to be desired:

Neither player rates highly by jump metrics, but Castellanos is near the very bottom. This is all the more surprising because Castellanos is an above average runner and Tucker isn’t. Castellanos has a sprint speed of 27.7 feet per second, putting him in the 58th percentile. The five players with worse jump stats than Castellanos are all at least 1.3 feet per second slower than him, which is more than a full standard deviation. Tucker’s sprint speed is in the 31st percentile at 26.5 feet per second. In fact, Tucker’s sprint speed is nearly a foot slower than his 2021 mark of 27.4.

That leads to the next chart, which is quite fun. Tucker is a Gold Glove right fielder who, according to the numbers, doesn’t make spectacular plays. Here is OAA for the two players, bucketed by catch probability:

Tucker didn’t make any five-star plays this season, which didn’t hurt much because their catch probability is so low anyway. Only six outfielders made more than two five-star plays this year. Tucker was right around average on three- and four-star plays, and then nearly perfect on one- and two-star plays. He accrued nearly all of his defensive value on balls with a catch probability of 75% or higher. That is to say, Tucker earned a Gold Glove by simply making all the plays you’d expect him to make. Last year, when his average sprint speed was nearly a full foot per second faster, Tucker made a five-star play and three four-star plays. However, he was not as automatic on one- and two-star plays. The result was 4 OAA, the same as this year.

It’s also worth noting that Tucker’s opportunities generally skewed easier than Castellanos’. He saw fewer three-, four-, and five-star chances, and nearly twice as many one-star chances. In one category the sample is as small as six opportunities, which certainly plays its part in the year-over-year variance in defensive metrics. Castellanos was just about average on one-star plays, but below average in all other buckets.

Breaking things down another way, plays going back are a huge differentiator between Tucker and Castellanos. The graphic below shows directional OAA for Tucker (left) and Castellanos (right):

Tucker is clearly superior to Castellanos on balls going back. Over the course of the 2022 season, only one right fielder was better than Tucker going back, and only two right fielders were worse than Castellanos.

This is one case where the eye test matches up perfectly with the advanced metrics. Tucker always seems comfortable making plays on the warning track. The reel below is obviously cherry-picked to emphasize this point, but it has some representative plays that show Tucker excelling and Castellanos struggling on balls that send them each to the wall:

Even when he’s not in his home park, Tucker always seems to know where the wall is, whereas Castellanos pulls up short because he isn’t sure. Per Baseball Savant, Castellanos made just seven plays where the wall was a factor (one of them very impressive). He missed plays near the wall with catch probabilities of 80% and 90%. Tucker made 12 plays at the wall, including a league-leading three home run robberies. He didn’t miss any plays at the wall that had a catch probability above 50%.

Both players struggled with balls hit in and to their right, and both were best on balls in and to their left. In the case of Castellanos, that was the only direction in which he had average range. As it turns out, those plays in the World Series shouldn’t have surprised anyone. The sliding grab on a sinking liner to his left is his signature move. It didn’t take much searching to compile the reel below. It includes seven such plays, including one on a ball hit by Tucker:

Throwing makes up the final piece of the comparison between the two right fielders. Please don’t expect any surprises this late in the game:

Although they tallied the same number of assists, Tucker’s arm accrued more value. Per The Fielding Bible, with 87 opportunities to advance on Tucker, opponents took 41 extra bases, or 47.1%. Castellanos allowed 48 extra bases on 97 opportunities for 49.5%. Although his hardest throw was just 0.6 mph faster, Tucker’s average throw was 5 mph faster, which likely accounts for the extra respect runners showed him.

As is often the case, Tucker wasn’t the only right fielder who had an argument to win the Gold Glove. He was the best right fielder in the American League by DRS, but UZR ranked him seventh in the AL and 14th overall. Fellow finalists Jackie Bradley Jr. and Max Kepler were rated more highly by UZR and OAA, respectively. Defensive standout Kyle Isbel would have had a great case, but he didn’t play enough innings to qualify. One area where Tucker was head and shoulders above all three of those players was in his dependability. He was one of just two players to spend more than 1,200 innings in right field this year.

Whether the Gold Glove raises his profile or not, all indicators point to Tucker continuing his solid play in right field. If you need more proof, just take another look at one of the plays that upstaged him earlier in the series. He may be under the radar, but he still makes the play: