A vital criticism of the 2018 Phillies was how willing they were to stick players at any position, no matter how poorly they played defense. The most notable examples of this were playing Rhys Hoskins every day in left field and dubbing Scott Kingery the starting shortstop after J.P. Crawford‘s multiple injuries.
While the team preached having versatile players, that versatility didn’t mean much if those players were not playing good defense. That was the case as Philadelphia finished the season with -146 defensive runs saved, the worst total in the league and the worst in franchise history since the stat’s inception in 2003.