Castillo, De La Rosa Non-Tendered, Mathis Inked

Per Nick Piecoro via twitter, the FDiamondbacks have non-tendered both right-handed pitcher Rubby De La Rosa and starting catcher Welington Castillo/

While it comes as no big surprise to see Rubby De La Rosa non-tendered, it is something of a shock that Welington Castillo was. The bat-first backstop acquired from Seattle in 2015 was due to make roughly $5.9 million through his second year as an arbitration-eligible player in 2017. With Tuffy Gosewisch released, Castillo and Herrmann were the only viable backstops in the organization with anything that could be even remotely considered success at or above the AA level. During his time in Arizona, Castillo put together a .261/.320/.452 triple slash and also threw out 33.65% of would-be base stealers.

Also per Nick Piecoro, the Diamondbacks have signed catcher Jeff Mathis.

In quick response to the move however, the Diamondbacks signed Jeff Mathis, a glove-first back-up catcher who has provided a grand total of 1.8 bWAR over the course of his 12 seasons of work. It would seem that Mathis will now serve as the back-up to Chris Herrmann, who now sits as the best option the team has for working behind the plate. Contract details have yet to be released, but Mathis’ total outlay figures to be substantially less than what Castillo would have received for 2017.

Apparently the Diamondbacks were not bullish on the ability to move Castillo during the meetings. It seems pretty apparent that Hazen still has some more big plans in store that we will all be hearing about over the course of the next week.