Maybe when they brought him up and he was the face of the future for the rebuilding Cubs, but then he was quickly eclipsed by many better young players It wasn't all that quickly. Not even Rizzo was called up until the middle of Castro's third year in the league. I just don't think he was ever much of a fan favorite. Polarizing, at least. I feel like he kind of morphed into fan favorite when he did a lot of goofy things on the first good Cubs team in quite some time. He was hated for a while by some because he did things people thought were lazy.