You likely won’t see a bigger defensive upgrade this offseason than the one the Phillies just made in right field. 

The Phillies signed free agent Adolis García to a one-year, $10 million contract. The expectation is that they’ll follow this up by trading or releasing their regular right fielder of the last four years, Nick Castellanos.

By small sample or larger sample, there is no comparison between García and Castellanos defensively.

If we look at last 5 seasonsAdolis García 36 (2nd-most in MLB)Nick Castellanos -51 (fewest)

— Sports Info Solutions (@sportsinfosolutions.com) 2025-12-15T17:39:10.089Z

And that’s even with a rough -5 Runs Season from García in 2024. That appears not to be the norm.

And yes, we know that Castellanos has not made an error in three of the last four seasons but Defensive Runs Saved is a more sophisticated stat than errors. It takes into account what you did and did not reach. It’s easy to avoid making errors when you don’t reach balls. Castellanos had the 9th-worst “jump” stats of any outfielder in baseball last year, as measured by MLB. 

In looking at Castellanos’ most-penalized plays last season, there was a mix of issues related to communication (particularly with second baseman Bryson Stott) and hesitation.  

* Jump measures how much ground you cover compared to an average outfielder. Castellanos rated 2.4 feet fewer than average.

García’s strength had not necessarily been getting to balls but in 2025 he was better at it than he had ever been before. He had by far the best Range Runs Saved numbers of his career. This was driven by an abundance of nice catches on shallow fly balls. Stott shouldn’t have to feel like he’s got to go for every ball anymore because García has (at least last season) a knack for reaching what needs to be reached.

And how about this for coincidences. One of García’s best catches of the season (at least on a shallow fly ball) came against … Castellanos!

That’s not to say that García doesn’t have flaws. He fared poorly against balls hit to the deepest part of the ballpark. But overall he still rated far ahead of Castellanos.

Plays Saved Above Average In 2025 – By Depth

* Plays Saved Above Average = our version of MLB’s Outs Above Average 

To put some raw numbers behind it, here are the outs made and opportunities for each fielder on shallow and medium balls.

García: 199/264 (expected to make 176 plays, made 199)

Castellanos: 164/252 (expected to make 171 plays, made 164)

* Opportunities are any ball on which the player has a >0% chance to record an out

Outfield Arm

There is likewise not much of a comparison between García’s arm and Castellanos’ arm. Last season, García had 4 Outfield Arm Runs Saved, Castellanos had -2. García has a history of being consistently good. Castellanos does not.

Outfield Arm Runs Saved – Right Field, Last 5 Seasons

To show the raw numbers, again over a longer period of time, we can look at the rate that baserunners advanced an extra base on hits fielded by each player over the last five seasons (meaning how often they went 1st to 3rd or 2nd to home on singles, or 1st to home on a double).

* Read this as: “40% of baserunners advanced an extra base on hits against Garcia, 54% did against Castellanos”

Here are three examples of García putting his arm to good use last season.

Defense has been an issue for the Phillies for several years. They haven’t finished in the top half of the majors since 2019. Swapping out Castellanos for García should improve the team’s outfield defense considerably. Castellanos was a fan favorite and did have a great postseason defensively in 2022. But what Castellanos did then, García has done on the regular.