Baltimore Orioles

Baltimore Orioles: O's confident Castillo and pitchers will bond in Spring Training

Updated Mar. 5, 2020 12:23 a.m. ET

Fansided, Delia Enriquez/FanSided via Birds Watcher

The newest member of the Baltimore Orioles, Welington Castillo, wasn’t at Orioles training camp. Which means the pitching rotation is going to have to get to know their new catcher in Spring Training.

If there’s one thing the Baltimore Orioles–or any Major League team–believes in, it’s the relationship between pitchers and catchers. Having that dynamic relationship helps in games and it could be the difference between dominance and ineffectiveness.

Being a new player on a new team, it’s important for Welington Castillo to get together with the pitchers and develop a game plan for the upcoming season. However, it’s tough to do so at the moment since Castillo wasn’t at Orioles minicamp last week.

Despite Castillo not forming that important pitching / catching bond during minicamp, the Orioles aren’t concerned. Castillo is going to use Spring Training to develop a relationship with his pitchers and hope for the best.

Some of the pitchers in the rotation–like Chris Tillman for example–spent majority of their time pitching to former Orioles catcher Matt Wieters. But with Wieters’ departure and the signing of Castillo, Tillman is going to need a new game plan if he wants to dominate the American League East in 2017.

The Orioles are confident that Castillo will work well with the pitching staff, especially since he’s extremely coachable.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter said the following about Castillo last week:

The thing I like about Welington is, he’s a good teammate, good person and really wants to be good at what he does. Very coachable. And I have a lot of confidence in (bench coach) John Russell. Don’t think that anyone has a better catching instructor than we have.

“I feel confident Welington will be as good as he’s capable of being. He’s gotten better. He throws well, he wants to be a good catcher. He likes to ply his trade. Offensive threats at the catching position are hard to find. He’s capable of hitting 15-20 home runs. He understands where the priority is going to be on his contributions.”

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So far, fans are pleased with the signing of Castillo. But only time will tell whether the signing works out for all parties involved. For the record, I think the signing will work out just fine–as long as Castillo and the starting rotation is on the same page.