Meet the Marlins: Daniel Castano

The Miami Marlins five-game winning streak has come amid unprecedented roster turnover. The club has made nearly 40 roster moves since resuming their season after an 8-day COVID-19 hiatus. Come game time tonight, Miami will have seen eight straight days of MLB debuts, with the latest being Daniel Castano.

So many new faces have joined the club that Marlins manager Don Mattingly admitted to not having personally met players who were taking the field for him.

“A pretty good roster turnover here,” Mattingly said last week. “Some of the guys I’ve never met and still at this point have not met — texted with, but not met. There are other guys that we’re comfortable with that we know are coming. They were part of our summer camp and actually our spring also so parts of it are comfortable.”

Marlins catcher Francisco Cervelli voiced a similar sentiment, saying he was meeting pitchers for the first time at the mound.

The Marlins will have their ninth different starting pitcher take the hill for their ninth consecutive game. Tonight, it will be 25-year-old prospect Daniel Castano, whose contract was among those selected by the team to fill the void left by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Marlins’ Daniel Castano’s Career Thus Far

Miami acquired Castano as part of the Marcell Ozuna deal with the St. Louis Cardinals. The 25-year-old lefty came to the Marlins with RHP Sandy Alcantara, RHP Zac Gallen and OF Magneuris Sierra on 12/14/2017. The Cardinals drafted Castano in the 19th round of the 2016 First-Year Player Draft out of Baylor University.

In 2017 with the Cardinals organization, Castano went 9-3 with a 2.57 ERA for Short Season-A State College over 14 starts, striking out 81 in 91.0 innings. He earned a New York-Penn League Midseason All-Star berth that year.

After coming over to the Marlins, Castano moved through three levels of Single-A ball, ultimately earning an MILB.com Organizational All-Star berth in 2018. He made eight starts for Single-A Greensboro, going 4-3 with a 2.70 ERA in 50.0 innings and striking out 52. 14 starts for Jupiter followed, going 5-8 with a 4.74 ERA in 76.0 innings. He finished the season in Advanced-A Jupiter. All told, he went with a 9-12 record with a 3.93 ERA.

Castano split 2019 between Advanced-A Jupiter and Double-A Jacksonville. He made 12 appearances for Jupiter, going 0-2 with a 3.82 ERA in 33.0 innings pitched, striking out 31. He earned a promotion to Jacksonville on May 27 and went 7-2 with a 3.35 ERA in 18 games (11 Starts), striking out 73 in 86.0 innings pitched.

Castano doesn’t have overpowering stuff, unlike fellow prospect Jorge Guzman. He registers his outs through command and control. His fastball measures 88-92 mph, topping out at 94. There’s some sink to it and he hides the ball well. He throws strikes and has an effective, slow curveball. He’s has shown considerable growth over his minor league career and will look to fill the void in the starting rotation.