Shooting down the “new” Luis Castillo rumor
I don't think anybody made an offer on Luis Castillo. At least, not recently.
Bob Nightengale stirred a fresh round of rumors and excitement with a column he published on Sunday. Here's what he said:
The Seattle Mariners desperately need some offensive help after injuries to right fielder Victor Robles and second baseman Ryan Bliss will sideline them for at least three to four months. Yet, one club who offered a young infielder for veteran starter Luis Castillo, was told that Castillo remains off-limits - at least for now.
I first learned about this from 710 ESPN. Here's what they published:
On Sunday, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that the M’s have already turned down a trade this season involving starting pitcher Luis Castillo. According to Nightengale, the club was offered “a young infielder” from an unnamed team for their veteran starting pitcher. That offer came after injuries suffered by starting right fielder Victor Robles and second baseman Ryan Bliss.
At first glance, it sounds like there's ongoing trade discussions involving Castillo, even if it's implied those discussions are one sided. That's interesting.
But 710 published this as a digital supplement for a radio interview with Jeff Passan on the Brock and Salk show. Here's what Passan said when the hosts asked what details he'd learned about the supposed offer:
"I didn't bother making a call because just logically right now it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It's too early ... for any trades to be happening."
He was gracious enough to list off several other reasons such a trade doesn't make sense right now, but he sounded a bit incredulous at the premise of such a rumor in April in the first place. He didn't believe it.
And yeah, after rereading the Nightengale passage, it doesn't sound like something that happened recently.
First, Nightengale buried this "rumor" 30 inches into his column. It was a two-sentence bullet point in a series of bullet points that ranged from Cody Bellinger's food poisoning to "victual reality" (sic) glasses to Alex Bregman's father running for governor. The passage quoted above is the entirety of what Nightengale wrote on the matter. I have to believe a legitimate trade offer at this time of year for a player of Castillo's caliber would get its own article, or higher placement, or at the very least more words than Eric Hosmer's thoughts on PED suspensions.
Nightengale also never attached a timeline to the supposed trade offer; he only said that there was an offer at one point and it had been rejected. But we kind of already knew that -- whether the Mariners would or should or could trade Castillo was a well-dissected storyline of the offseason. To me, it sounds as if Nightengale is using new events (the injuries to Victor Robles and Ryan Bliss) to squeeze more juice out of an old rumor, with perfectly passive phrasing to gloss over the recycled intel.
And so it's not entirely accurate for 710, in their brief, to use Nightengale's column to say, "the M’s have already turned down a trade this season" and that the "offer came after injuries," because that isn't actually what he wrote.
I don't mean to single out 710 -- it's simply where I first heard the rumor. But plenty other news aggregators got this wrong before they did. For instance, MLB Trade Rumors ran a similar framing off Nightengale's column. Many other places around the internet did so, too, including "Sports Illustrated” and several other AI-generated content farms.
All this to say, I don't think this is a real thing happening now.
Now, it is true that there's been some legitimate reports that the Mariners are exploring external options for their infield. The Seattle Times last week outlined how a trade might work this early in the season:
If the Mariners do make a move soon, it would probably be a small deal for a veteran infielder playing in the minor leagues somewhere, and one source said the Mariners have been “combing outside rosters” looking for such an option.
Some veterans on minor-league contracts have an “upward mobility clause” they can exercise if they have a chance to sign with another major-league team. Others have opt-out clauses, and many of those kick in on May 1.
To me, that sounds more along the lines of Abraham Toro (and perhaps literally Toro) than a blockbuster Castillo trade this early in the year.
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