Phillies all but seal Nick Castellanos' fate with Adolis Garcia addition

The Philadelphia Phillies may have tipped their hand with their most recent addition.

Giving Adolis Garcia a one-year, $10M deal looks like a bargain on the surface, but it also leaves the door open for Nick Castellanos' departure. The veteran right fielder struggled down the stretch last season and was a trade candidate this offseason.

Now, MLB insider Jon Heyman reports that Garcia's arrival has all but sealed Castellanos' fate in the City of Brotherly Love.

Phillies are ready to move on from Nick Castellanos

"Nick Castellanos will be gone one way or another from Philly. $20M to go for 2026. You’d think some team would pay some small fraction of it, but in any case, he’s been replaced. Adolis is the new RF," Heyman wrote on X.

On paper, Garcia can be a major upgrade for this team if he can return to his All-Star form from 2023, when he hit 39 homers and had 107 RBI for the World Series champions, the Texas Rangers.

He hasn't been as efficient at the plate since those days, and he's coming off hitting just .227 with 19 dingers last season. That being said, the Phillies are in desperate need of production at the position, and Castellanos struggled mightily in the second half of the campaign. He didn't even play in 13 of the team's final 25 games, so the writing was already on the wall for him.

The only problem is that he's still owed $20M as he enters the final year of the five-year, $100M contract they gave him in 2022, and unless they're willing to absorb a big portion of that salary in a trade, they may have no choice but to release him.