MLB Trade Rumors and News: Reds ink Nick Castellanos to a four year deal, per report

We have finally reached the end of the major free agent pool. Once Marcell Ozuna signed a one year deal with the Braves, the options for impact bats were quite thin on the free agent market with the pool being headlined by Nick Castellanos.

While Castellanos is pretty abysmal defensively, the guy can flat out hit and his name had been attached to numerous clubs at various points this offseason. One of the big attractions in signing Castellanos is that he had no qualifying offer attached to him which means that the team that signed him wasn’t going to have to give up a draft pick. It also helps that the guy can absolutely rake as he posted a .289/.337/.525 line with 27 homers in 2019.

Now, he has a new home.

The Reds had already been busy this offseason with the signings of Wade Miley, Mike Moustaskas, and Shogo Akiyama and this is a pretty big cherry on top. The financial terms of the deal are a little more rich on Castellanos’ side than had been predicted, so that is good news for Nick and his agent. Obviously, in the band box that is the Reds’ home park, Castellanos is likely to do quite well for himself at the plate, but there is a potential wrinkle to this signing.

This coming out within a matter of minutes of the Castellanos signing seems to indicate that the Reds are not done making big deals quite yet.