Nick Castellanos has gone to the media to complain about manager Rob Thomson’s communication skills. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)
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Yeah, Casty still isn’t happy.
Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos took some shots at his manager Rob Thomson on Friday night while chatting with the media. No biggie, right? Disgruntled players air beefs all the time.
But it’s the timing of said shot that makes for bad optics. The Phillies are gelling right now — winning 12 of 16 — and they don’t need any bad juju disrupting their “what a gift” vibes. And they’re also on the cusp of entering Red October when petty beefs should vanish for the greater good of the team.
The greater good, of course, is getting to the World Series and winning it. And nothing else should matter, but apparently not for Castellanos, who felt compelled to moan about his playing-time reduction.
His ill-timed criticism of his manager on Friday night also came after he launched his 250th career home run in a win against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Shouldn’t he be celebrating the victory? Nope. Instead, he tossed a grenade on Thomson’s communication skills after getting asked about the challenges of his reduced role.
“I don’t really talk to Rob all that often,” he told the media. “I play whenever he tells me to play, and then I sit whenever he tells me to sit. Communication over the years has been questionable, at least in my experience. But also, I grew up communicating with somebody like my father which was really blunt and consistent.”
Here’s the full post-game dissing of Thomson:
Something to highlight in the interview, Castellanos said one good (i.e. unselfish) thing: “I’m here to do whatever I can to make sure that Philadelphia wins a World Series ring. So whatever role that looks like, just do the best I can with that.” Oh, why didn’t he stop there? Instead, his unselfishness got lost in his stew of complaints.
On Saturday, Thomson and Castellanos met before the Phillies took on the Diamondbacks. Then Thomson followed up with reporters, taking the proverbial high road as he often does. “I met with him today and I thought it was really productive,” the manager said. “I’m not going to get into specifics of what we talked about, but I thought it was good.”
Thomson addressed Castellanos dissing his communication skills.
“As far as the communication part of it, not only Nick, if anybody else in that clubhouse doesn’t think that I’m communicating enough with them, I’m probably not and I’ve got to do a better job at it,” Thomson said said. “That’s just being accountable. But there’s two ways of communicating and that door is always open. I’m not a mind reader; I can’t tell the future and I’m not a mind reader. I urge players, I want players to come in here and tell me what’s on their mind. Obviously, I have to do a better job. If a guy’s frustrated, I want him to come in here.”
This is getting old — Castellanos griping over something and Thomson left to explain himself. In June, Castellanos got benched for one game for an “inappropriate” comment after Thomson took him out for a defensive replacement. Then, last month, Castellanos gave “the-best-I-can” response when asked how he’s handing the outfield platoon.
So, hopefully, the latest round of Castellanos’ griping is the last one. But it probably isn’t.