No. 33: John Castino (15.1 WAR)
Careers get cut short in baseball, and people are left wondering “what if”. That was the case with infielder John Castino, who played for the Minnesota Twins from 1979 to 1984. His first five seasons were fairly healthy, but unfortunately 1984 marked the end of a career with so much promise.
Castino won the American League Rookie of the Year in 1979 after batting .285 with five home runs and 52 runs batted in. In 1980, he had his best wins above replacement total with a 4.5 mark. He also hit .302 with 13 home runs and 64 RBIs, his best total for each of those stats.
He led the American League in triples during the 1981 season with nine, and is eleventh in Twins club history with 34 in his career. If he was able to play longer, he would have surely climbed the list.
His last full season in the majors was 1983, he batted .277 with eleven home runs and 57 RBIs. He put up his second-best WAR of his career with 4.4. His good fortune would not last much longer.
Castino was forced to retire in May of 1984, after a fused disc in his back was discovered. Castino was suffering from back pain early in the season. His last game was played on May 7th, 1984. Although his career was cut short, he was named one of the 50 greatest players in Twins history during the 2010 season. It truly is a story of what could have been.