The Phillies Can Never Make Me Hate Nick Castellanos

On Thursday, the Philadelphia Phillies released outfielder Nick Castellanos after months of threatening to do so. All offseason, I have read reports that the Phillies wanted to get rid of Castellanos, either by trading him or cutting him, if they had to. The underlying tone of these reports was that the Phillies would rather eat the rest of his contract ($20 million) than have to work with him again. This is not only terrible negotiating, because you indicate to other teams that you will most likely release him and pay his contract, and then they can sign him for cheaper instead of trading you for him. It's also petty.

The pettiness reached its peak yesterday, when the Phillies finally announced that they were releasing Castellanos, and at the same time he posted on Instagram two separate handwritten letters: one titled "Philadelphia" and one titled "Miami Incident."