The Chicago White Sox have signed catcher Welington Castillo according to Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The deal is for two-years with a club option according to Rosenthal.
The deal is worth $15 million over the two years and the option for a third year is $8 million per Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports.
Castillo, 30, hit .282/.323/.490 with a career-high 20 home runs, 53 RBI and was a 2.7 fWAR player in 96 games for the Baltimore Orioles during the 2017 season.
The right-handed hitting Castillo was non-tendered by the Arizona Diamondbacks last offseason before he ultimately signed a one-year, $6 million deal with an option for 2018 with the Orioles.
Castillo also saw a significant improvement in his pitch framing according to Baseball Prospectus going from -9.4 framing runs in 2016 to 3.7 framing runs in 2017. BP had Castillo has the 10th ranked defensive catcher in 2017 with 7.4 fielding runs above average.
The Castillo deal becomes the first major league deal a position player has signed this offseason.
