The Baltimore Orioles may need to find themselves a new starting catcher after Welington Castillo declined his 2018 player option valued at $7 million, reports Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports.
"Castillo did a nice job for the Orioles in 2017, and had one of of his best offensive years and threw out almost half of the base-stealers," Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette told MLB.com's Brittany Ghiroli.
"Fortunately we have Caleb Joseph and Chance Sisco on the roster with Austin Wynns on the horizon," Duquette added to Eduardo A. Encina of the Baltimore Sun.
Castillo now becomes a free agent and is likely to earn a raise over the salary he declined thanks to a 20-home run campaign and an .813 OPS in 96 games for Baltimore in 2017.
The 30-year-old owns a .259/.319/.428 career slash line with 80 home runs and 283 RBIs across eight big-league seasons.