McCaffery

homestand against the Milwaukee Brewers, that meant Crawford would be at third and Kingery would be at short. It meant that neither would be at the position they were ticketed to play in all the artist’s renderings of a rebuilt championship contender.

“Going forward,” Kapler said, “I see Scott as an infielder. I see J.P. as an infielder. And I see Mikey Franco as an infielder. All three of them are perfectly capable. Well, Mikey’s a third baseman, but certainly Scotty and J.P. can move around the diamond. And so, for that reason, we see them both as infielders.”

That’s how it works with ordinary players, guys just trying to hang around a big-league roster for another week of meal money. They will play everywhere from bullpen catcher to drawn-in outfielder. But either Kingery and Crawford are going to be star-level major-league players, or the Phillies’ prolonged rebuilding plan will have to begin again. Same with Hoskins. Same with Franco, who by now should have been so set at third base that even a day off would have resulted in angry columns and large-type headlines.

They’re not infielders. They are, or at least they were promoted as, future stars. But Crawford has not been special enough to claim the permanent shortstop job. And Franco has so struggled that he has slipped into something of a platoon role. Kingery has been blocked, at least early in his career, by Cesar Hernandez, who has been playing at a high level at second. But wasn’t he supposed to be more than an infield nomad?

“You know, to be honest, I’m fine with playing every position,” Kingery said. “We just got done playing the Cubs, and Ben Zobrist has kind of made a career out of being that utility guy that can play defensively very well at all positions. If that’s my role going forward, I’m happy to do it. I think every game I get at those new positions, it’ll become more natural and I’ll be able to roll in knowing that I’m going to play solid defense at every position.”

He’s a rookie. What else is he going do to, yank the clubhouse disco ball from the ceiling and flip over the laser-lightshow machine? Crawford, too, is in just his second season, and he doesn’t have enough hits to have built up a comfortable complaint account. But how can the Phillies rehab Crawford at short, then return him to the big leagues and play him somewhere else? Who’s running the communications around there, the Sixers’ socialmedia watchdogs?

“I was surprised,” Crawford said. “But I’m on the field playing. So I’m happy.”

The Phillies should have been beyond having young players just excited to be in the lineup. They definitely should have been past the point where Franco is being downgraded to a sometimes-starter, except that he returned from the road trip with a .249 average and a continuing inability to reach base. But with each spin of infield roulette, it’s more obvious that the Phillies are still trying to figure out what they have in three young infielders they’d hinted were well beyond project stage.

“While we are trying to develop, we don’t see an enormous delta between, just using this example, Scott at short, J.P. at third, J.P. at short, Scott at third,” Kapler said. “Do we really know which one gives us a better chance to win? So, yes, we’re trying to develop Scott. But we’re also trying to win. And we feel this gives us a good chance to win.”

Kapler will write his lineup cards based on pitching matchups, past performance and other analytics. He’ll set his defense that way, too. The Phillies hired him with that understanding. They should not be surprised.

“Kap will make out the lineup every day based on our conversations,” general manager Matt Klentak said. “I don’t think it’s going to be just Kingery every day and a straight platoon at third. I think there will be some mixing and matching along the way based on a lot of factors.”

Mixing and matching. Sounds like a code phrase for not being sure whether all those infielders of the future are exactly how they were advertised.

“It’s kind of cool,” Kapler said, “to have two natural shortstops.” Nah. Not really. Contact Jack McCaffery @jmccaffery@21stcenturymedia.com; follow him on Twitter @ JackMcCaffery