Nick Castellanos is available – and Cubs fans are conflicted

After a miserable 2025, the Philadelphia Phillies have decided to eat $20 million in salary, and give Nick Castellanos his release.

Cubs fans, it seems, have a very positive view of Castellanos, most likely because of his small sample size domination as a Cub in 2019. As the Cubs could use a designated hitter/backup outfielder who can hit left-handed pitching, some fans see a Castellanos reunion with the Cubs as being a positive:

I say yes, and I don’t care. Yes. Absolutely yes. pic.twitter.com/tIhZW1jTol

— OBVIOUS SHIRTS® (@obvious_shirts) February 13, 2026

He did love playing at Wrigley. And given a 2nd chance, he’s ripe for a very strong comeback season.

— Dave Robbins (@davrobbins) February 13, 2026

However, there were several rebuttals:

Nick Castellanos.

Love what he did for the Cubs in 2019, but we should really not be talking ourselves into wanting the soon-to-be 34-year-old version of him.

— Alex Patt (@chifanpatt2) February 11, 2026

Love Nick Castellanos. Would make absolutely ZERO sense for the Cubs https://t.co/0wbtuFeNAF

— David Kep (@Davey_Baseball) February 12, 2026

So let’s say the Cubs might even consider bringing Castellanos in on the league minimum to compete with Tyler Austin for the right-handed DH/outfield backup role.

Here are the positives:

• He has a .364/.399/.699 slash line in his career at Wrigley, including a .348/.400/.609 line over the past two seasons
• He slashed .321/.356/.646 for the Cubs over 51 games in 2019, which I wrote about in this post about the trades of 2019
• His OPS against left-handed pitcher over his career is .853 as compared to .762 against right-handers
• Had really good postseasons in 2023 and 2024
• He would probably only have to be paid the league minimum, as any additional money would be subtracted from what the Phillies are paying him

And here are the negatives:

• Had a -0.8 WAR and 88 OPS+ in 2025, including going 2 for 15 in the NLDS
• Was worse against lefties (.680 OPS) than righties (.701 OPS) in 2025
• He has never played first base, giving the Cubs no logical backup there if he takes Austin’s spot
• He is terrible in the outfield, with -10, -10, -9, -11 and -11 defensive runs saved the past 5 seasons.
• He brought a beer into the dugout last season
• He might not be willing to take a limited bench role, potentially causing some turmoil in the Cubs’ locker room

I think there is a very small chance Castellanos comes back to the Cubs. Teams pick up washed up veterans all the time, thinking they might be able to revive their careers and rediscover the success of their youth…and it never works for them…

An ulterior motive for bringing in Castellanos would be the inevitable bizarre event that would coincide with a hoe run he would hit.

Nick Castellanos's greatest contribution to baseball was getting Thom Brennaman fired. https://t.co/6pSSaPykTE

— Minneapolis Polar Cub (@MinneapolisPipe) February 13, 2026