Marlins Park may dissuade local star from coming home as a free agent

There’s no secret that the Miami Marlins need some more bats to truly become a competitive team and their home ballpark favors pitchers more than hitters with their long outfield dimensions.

That might actually keep some free agents away from signing with the Marlins. One in particular is Davie native Nicholas Castellanos, who is currently an outfielder for the Detroit Tigers.

Like the Marlins, the Tigers are a rebuilding team and don’t expect any of their players to want to resign when free agency comes around. Like Marlins Park, Comerica Park is also a pitchers park and Castellanos has a problem with the dimensions there, how would he find Miami to be any better?

“This park’s a joke,” Castellanos said to reporters after hitting a walk-off home run against the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday. “It’s to the point where, how are we going to be compared to the rest of the people in the league for power numbers, OPS, slugging and all this stuff when we got a yard out here that’s 420 feet straight across in center field?”

Castellanos’ main issue with Comerica Park is how many homers hit there turn into fly outs or mere extra base hits. His home run was hit 372 feet to left field.

It’s a similar complaint that both fans and players have alike when it comes to Marlins Park, Seattle’s T-Mobile Park and San Diego’s Petco Park. Seattle and San Diego moved the outfield fences in to increase the chance of home runs being hit there and it led to both struggling franchises signing major free agents in the recent decade.

Castellanos has 11 home runs but led the majors in triples in 2017 and leads MLB in doubles with 34 this season. That’s where his home ballpark plays a factor for the better but not the same as reaching power hitter status. His career high for home runs was 26 in 2017.

“We get on second base or third base, and they’re looking, like, ‘Man, how do you guys do this?’ We play 81 games here. I don’t want to hear about your two that you hit that are questionable,” said Castellanos. “Move in center field, right center, there is no reason that I hit a ball 434 off Anibal Sanchez and it goes in the first row, that shouldn’t happen.”

At 27 years of age, Castellanos would seem like an ideal fit for this young core reaching it’s prime, but his comments seem like recruiting him from one pitcher’s park to the other seem futile.