2 Teams Interested In All-Star Nick Castellanos

The Miami Marlins and San Francisco Giants are big players in the Nick Castellanos sweepstakes.

Free agent Nick Castellanos is drawing interest from the #Marlins and #SFGiants, among others, as I reported a short time ago on @MLBNetwork. Castellanos, 29, is a graduate of Archbishop McCarthy High School in Southwest Ranches, Fla., about 25 miles from LoanDepot Park. @MLB
— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) November 18, 2021

As Jon Morosi noted above, Castellanos played high school baseball in Florida near LoanDepot Park. Perhaps that degree of familiarity could lead the 2021 All-Star to head home and sign with the Marlins. The Marlins are also expected to be aggressive this winter, so they could end up outbidding the rest of the league for his services.

The Giants, on the other hand, are coming off of a 107-win season and could be heading for another championship in the near future. Therefore, it wouldn't be surprising at all to see Castellanos elect to head there, too. It would give him a better shot of playing playoff baseball than with the rebuilding Marlins, at least for right now. Things change in baseball very quickly.

Castellanos opted out of the final two years of his contract with the Cincinnati Reds and is coming off of a career season. Therefore, he will rightfully be asking for a huge deal this offseason. In 138 games, he had 34 home runs, 100 RBIs and a .309 batting average. That kind of production at the plate is spectacular.

It will be interesting to see if Castellanos ends up signing with one of these two franchises. Yet, at this juncture, I wouldn't rule out other teams, either. The offseason is just getting started and more franchises should be jumping into the sweepstakes.