CLEARWATER, Fla. (AP) — Turns out, the Philadelphia Phillies were ale-ing last year.
Deciding their relationship ruptured when Nick Castellanos angrily brought a beer into the dugout after he was pulled from a game, the Phillies released the outfielder even though they owe him $20 million for the final season of a $100 million, five-year contract.
Draught was an issue in a season that extended the team's title drought.
In a four-page handwritten letter posted Thursday, Castellanos admitted he broke a team rule by bringing a Presidente beer into the dugout last June “after being taken out of a close ball game in front of my friends and family.” Phillies manager Rob Thomson made the move for defense with a 3-1 eighth-inning lead during a 5-2 win at Miami on June 16.
“I'm proud of him because he owned up to what he did and, hey, we all make mistakes,” Thomson said Friday. “Nick had helped us out in a lot of ways here. He’s had some big hits and big plays and helped us win a lot ballgames. So I do, I wish him all the best.”
During a season that ended with a Division Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, Castellanos hit .250 — his lowest in a non-shortened season — with 17 homers and 72 RBIs.
Any team can sign Castellanos for the $780,000 major league minimum. Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski had decided Castellanos wouldn’t report to the team for spring training — the 33-year-old did not have a locker assigned and two photos of him in the corridor of player images already had been removed.
“A lot of times when a good player has their role change with the club, it can cause some friction, and his role changed last year from where it was,” Dombrowski said. "I mean you played every single day for a lot years in a row, and so sometimes that can contribute to it. Sometimes then people have debates between themselves where they’re not all on the same page. But when you put all that together, sometimes you just need to make sure that you have a change of scenery."
Castellanos' minus-12 outs above average — how many outs they gain defensively over the average fielder at their position, according to MLB Statcast — tied the New York Mets' Juan Soto and the Los Angeles Angels' Jo Adell for 108th and last among 110 qualified outfielders.
Castellanos was removed for Johan Rojas, who took over in center as Brandon Marsh moved from center to left and Max Kepler from left to right.
“I then sat right next to Rob and let him know that too much Slack in some areas and too tight of restrictions in others and not (conducive) to us winning,” Castellanos wrote. “Shoutout to my teammates and Howie (Phillies special assistant Howie Kendrick) for taking the beer out of my hands before I could take a sip.
Castellanos said he “aired out our differences” after the game during a meeting with Thomson and Dombrowski.
“The conversation ended with me apologizing for letting my emotions get the best of me,” Castellanos wrote.
Castellanos was benched the next day for what Thomson said then was “an inappropriate comment.” Castellanos wrote the Phillies told him not to divulge details to reporters.
“I was surprised that a lot of people didn’t see what was taking place at the time,” Dombrowski said.
Thomson doesn't regret the messy details didn't become public at the time.
“I thought it was appropriate what we did,” he said.
Castellanos appeared in 75 of the team's final 90 regular season games and hit .133 with three RBIs in the four-game Division Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. His production decline led to the decision as much as the beer beef.
“That wasn’t the final or determining factor, because if that was, we would have done that at that particular time,” Dombrowski said.
Philadelphia secured a replacement in December, agreeing to a $10 million, one-year contract with Adolis García.
Reporting for the new season and hoping to win Philadelphia's first title since 2008, Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber wished Castellanos the best.
“We’ve had a lot of really good memories here over the last four years and he’s had some really big moments with us,” Schwarber said. “Hopefully wherever he goes next, he’s able to keep going out there and keep doing his thing and keep having those big moments.”
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FILE - Philadelphia Phillies' Nick Castellanos runs after hitting a double to score Alec Bohm and J.T. Realmuto during the ninth inning in Game 2 of baseball's National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Oct. 6, 2025, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — More than a dozen senior European officials arrived in the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday in a show of support on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine — a grim anniversary in a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and put European leaders on edge about the scale of Moscow’s ambitions on the continent.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country has withstood the onslaught by Russia’s bigger and better equipped army, which over the past year of fighting captured just 0.79% of Ukraine’s territory, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
“Looking back at the beginning of the invasion and reflecting on today, we have every right to say: we have defended our independence, we have not lost our statehood,” Zelenskyy said on social media, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin has “not achieved his goals.”
“He has not broken Ukrainians; he has not won this war,” Zelenskyy also said.
However, as the corrosive war of attrition enters its fifth year, a U.S.-led diplomatic push to end Europe’s biggest armed conflict since World War II appears no closer to finding compromises that might make a peace deal possible.
Negotiations are stuck on what happens to the Donbas, eastern Ukraine’s industrial heartland which Russian forces mostly occupy but have failed to seize completely, and the terms of a postwar security arrangement that Kyiv is demanding to deter any future Russian invasion.
The number of soldiers killed, injured or missing on both sides could reach 2 million by spring, with Russia sustaining the largest number of troop deaths for any major power in any conflict since World War II, a report last month from the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated.
European leaders see their countries’ own security at stake in Ukraine amid concerns about Putin’s wider goals and has demanded its leaders be consulted in the ongoing U.S.-brokered talks.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz wrote on X that “for four years, every day and every night has been a nightmare for the Ukrainians — and not just for them, but for us all. Because war is back in Europe.”
“We will only end it by being strong together, because the fate of Ukraine is our fate,” he added.
The war has drawn in countries far beyond Ukraine, giving the conflict a global dimension, and threatened to worsen shortages, hunger and political instability in developing countries.
While NATO countries have come to Ukraine’s aid, Russia has been helped by North Korea, which has sent troops and artillery shells; Iran, which has provided drone technology; and China, which the United States and analysts say has provided machine tools and chips.
Among the European officials visiting Kyiv on Tuesday were the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, as well as seven prime ministers and three foreign ministers.
With Ukraine unable to sustain its fight against Russia without foreign help, NATO countries are now providing military help, purchasing American weapons after the Trump administration broke with earlier Washington policy and stopped giving arms to Kyiv.
The European Union has also sent financial aid, but has sometimes met with reluctance from members Hungary and Slovakia.
British Armed Forces Minister Al Carns said Russia's war on Ukraine was “the most defining conflict” in decades.
“I don’t think anyone of us would be able to guess (when the war started) the scale and size of what has taken place,” he said.
The cost of rebuilding war-battered Ukraine would amount to almost $588 billion over the next decade, according to World Bank, the European Commission, the United Nations and the Ukrainian government.
That is nearly three times the estimated nominal GDP of Ukraine for last year, they said in a report Monday.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, centre, is welcomed by Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, centre right, as she arrives in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
From left: Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Sweden's Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere talk in the train during their journey from Poland's Medyka to Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, centre, is welcomed by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his wife Olena Zelenska, left, before a service at St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)
