Diego Castillo set for another good season in 2023 according to STEAMER projections

Back in the middle of 2021, the Mariners traded for Diego Castillo from the Rays. When I saw that it happened, I told a buddy "They better not have traded Austin Shenton, or I'm gonna be upset". Well, I was upset within a few minutes when it came out that he was indeed the piece going that way. He's a local kid who played ball 15 minutes away in high school, so it was cool to see him on the Mariners.

Now, he's across the country on a different team. I'm not here to talk about him though. We're talking about Diego Castillo, who has been on a bit of a roller coaster with the Mariners since coming over. Relievers are a fickle animal. Because of the limited innings, a blown save can really hurt their numbers. 3 ER in 0.1 IP? Yeah, you aren't recovering from that for another 8-10 scoreless appearances.

That was the case with Diego Castillo last year. Check out this funky split that I pulled from his stats, and look at how it likely affects his STEAMER projections. The "2022 bad" is three appearances. Back-to-back ones on May 7th and May 9th, and then September 11th.

2022 - 59 G, 54.1 IP, 3.64 ERA, 3.68 FIP, 1.14 WHIP, 8.8 K/9, 3.6 BB/9, .250 BABIP
2022 bad - 3 G, 11 ER, 1.1 IP, 3 BB, 2 K, 2 HR, 9 H, 9.0 WHIP
2022 good - 56 G, 11 ER, 53 IP, 19 BB, 51 K, 3 HR, 31 H, 0.94 WHIP
STEAMER - 63 G, 63 IP, 3.54 ERA, 3.65 FIP, 1.24 WHIP, 9.5 K/9, 3.33 BB/9, .291 BABIP

Those three bad games were awful. However, if you're telling me that 94.6% of the time you are getting those other numbers... I'm taking that all day every day, and there is no doubt about it.

So, here's the thing with the STEAMER projections. Are they predicting another couple of massive duds from Castillo? If so, then yeah, I think that looks about right. It lines up and makes sense. If that's what we are going to get from Castillo, and the STEAMER projections are right, then I think the Mariners are in for a good year in the pen from Castillo, especially if the other bullpen projections line up as well.