Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — First, let’s state the obvious. Trea Turner‘s grand slam in the top of the eighth inning of Saturday’s WBC quarterfinal was just the shot of adrenaline that baseball fans needed at this point of the season. Even after the game, the (newly) former Dodgers rated it as one of the biggest homers in his baseball career. Every damn thing about it was fantastic.
And I’m sure there are more than a few Dodgers fans in the aftermath of that spoonful of awesome sauce who are longing to have Turner back in blue in 2023. They might even have gone as far as to curse Andrew Friedman for letting the Phillies outbid him for the services of Turner. Granted, the Phillies and Dave Dombrowski gave Turner a boatload of money, 10 years for $300 million. But with the Dodgers’ deep pockets, surely they could have matched it, right?
Well, fans, I’m here to talk you off that ledge. Not only were the Dodgers right not to pay Turner his money, they were right not to go out and do the same thing to Xander Bogaerts, or Dansby Swanson, or (God help us) even Carlos Correa. Here’s why.
First, it’s an open question as to whether the Florida native Turner would have been willing to stay in LA long term at any price. He seems like a good guy, but I don’t think he was all that thrilled that the Nats traded him in the first place, and never seemed all that excited to be part of the Dodgers. The emotion that he displayed after his homer in the WBC was more than he showed at any time ever in his entire Dodger tenure. And that kind of composure is fine sometimes, but maybe it was that lack of fire that can hurt a team when the chips are down.
Second, Turner’s defense is marginal at best, bordering on a liability. One need only remember his two errors in the Division Series with San Diego to know that the Dodgers had to sacrifice a lot to get that bat in the lineup every day. His -1.0 Outs Above Average puts him smack dab in the middle of the pack among shortstops, and compared to say, Dansby Swanson’s 20.0 number, it seems pretty pale in comparison to other elite performers at the position. Conversely, the Dodgers’ new shortstop Miguel Rojas is as solid as they come at short, ranking in the top five at that position in the game. Does that mean I’d rather have Miguel Rojas than Trea Turner on my team? Of course not. That would be crazy. However, given the fact that Turner is gone anyway, having a solid defender like Rojas around takes away the sting a bit.
Finally, the Dodgers got the chance to see the best of Trea Turner, ages 28-29. That’s as good as it’s going to get folks. There are plenty of good years left in the tank for Turner, I’d imagine, but his skillset will probably diminish faster than you might think. For one, nobody stays the “fastest man in the game” forever. And if your game is built on elite speed, it’s bound to take a bigger hit as you age. And it’s not just speed on the basepaths that I’m talking about. Turner’s excellent bat speed often allows him to barrel up balls that he’s chasing out of the zone. That too will diminish with time.
Maybe the Phillies think that they can get enough out of Turner in the first five years of the contract to justify the big expense on the back end. But unless you’re Mookie Betts, that’s not how the Dodgers operate. The Dodgers will get by somehow moving forward, whether it is with Rojas or with somebody they pick up via trade during the year. And we’ll see how things shake out after that…
So enjoy Turner’s WBC heroics, but as far as Trea and the Dodgers are concerned, as the saying goes, “Don’t be sad that it’s over; be grateful that it happened.”
