I will say that they really tried, this year, to do something.
The Bregman signing, alone should have addressed a significant problem with 3B defense. I had initial hopes that we'd give Devers a try at 1B, and since we had the worst defensive 1Bman in MLB (Casas) there was some hope we could do a little better, on my part.
I think the 2B defense looked better on paper with KC & DHam over E Valdez & Co.
Trading for Narvaez not only looked good on paper, it has looked good, for real.
Making Rafaela the FT CF was certainly a move to improve defense, and it was such a high priority, we kept Anthony on the farm to make it happen.
The return of Story as not "something they did" about the $100M question, but on paper, we thought we'd do better on D, as long as he stayed healthy.
I think we tried. I'm still not sure why we failed, this badly. It wasn't from lack of trying, IMO>