Detroit Tigers: The phenomenon that is Hittin’ Harold Castro

Harold Castro has become a folk hero for the Detroit Tigers

Love him or hate him, there’s no denying the impact that Harold Castro has had on the 2022 Detroit Tigers. Hittin’ Harold is probably best when he plays once every few days, but A.J. Hinch has been forced to put him in the lineup more often because he’s the only one hitting with any kind of consistency.

The 28-year-old Castro is currently slashing .301/.316/.493 with a 134 wRC+, one off his career high. His slugging percentage is the highest of his career, and his expected slugging percentage of .548 suggests it should be even higher.  His .192 ISO is also the highest of his career by far.

His three home runs this season have all been clutch, with one coming in the ninth inning against the Tampa Bay Rays to give the Tigers the win, and two coming against the Minnesota Twins this past Wednesday to keep the team in the game. His second home run of the day was an upper deck shot at Target Field.

His barrel rate is the highest of his career, and his average launch angle is tied for the highest of his career, which has led to a career high 35% flyball rate. Are we seeing a new and improved Hittin’ Harold?

Well, not quite. At least not yet.

He still never walks, and while his strikeout rate, whiff rate, and chase rate are all down, he’s still a very undisciplined hitter. His whiff rate of 20.5% is actually the lowest of his career by a considerable margin according to Baseball Savant, which is encouraging.

But the reason why we should cool our jets on Harold Castro for the moment is simply the small sample size. Castro has done this across 76 plate appearances, which is not even 20% of the required number of plate appearances (502) to qualify for year-end awards. Even if he keeps this up this season, we should still hold our breath, because as we’ve seen with Akil Baddoo and Eric Haase, Castro could easily regress.

The thing about Castro that has always been nice is his ability to make contact, which is one of the reasons his walk rate is so low. He puts the bat on the ball. For his career, Castro has made contact on 82.4% of strikes that he has swung at. Even when he chases, he still manages to make contact 62.4% of the time.

He still doesn’t hit lefties well, with a career batting average against southpaws of .231. However, he is 4-for-10 with two extra-base hits off them this season, but again, small sample size.

His defense, of course, is appalling. Baseball Savant has him in the first percentile in outs above average. He is probably best served as a DH.

If Harold Castro is indeed selling out for more power, great. His teammates should take notes. It’s really incredible that Hittin’ Harold of all people is giving the team a power surge. But I think the Tigers will take it.