Philadelphia Phillies: All-Time Defensive Team, Position by Position

For a team that has mashed the cover off of the baseball in recent memory, you would think at first glance that the Philadelphia Phillies‘ organization hasn’t been built around solid defensive players, but around offensive juggernauts.

Not so fast. That isn’t even close to being the case.

While the Phillies have had their good times, and very, very bad times in their history, they have always held one philosophy as golden—defense rules the day. Though that philosophy may not have been as clear as the “pitching and defense wins championships” motto that current general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. uses, the citizens of Philadelphia have always respected a team that plays a gritty, hard style of baseball, and those players just so happened to be of an elite defensive caliber.

Though I’ve done a few slide shows like this before, most notably the Greatest Phillies’ in Team History, this one is going to be a bit different. I’ve taken a look at what made a player great during his tenure with the Phils’, but never held the one thing that turns a great player into a fan favorite in Philadelphia—defense—in such a high regard.

With that in mind, we have to turn on the blinders a bit here. Sometimes, when a great player is mentioned, people tend to believe that his defense was stellar, but that isn’t always the truth. I’ll be looking at a number of criteria, including consistent, above average defensive play, to determine who comes out on time.

So here we go! Here are the best defensive players in Phillies’ history, position by position.

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