Trea Turner: ‘I’ve sucked’ with Phillies
It’s been a slog for the Philadelphia Phillies to open the 2023 MLB season, and superstar shortstop Trea Turner is shouldering some blame.
“I’m honest with myself, I’ve sucked,” Turner said Monday after the Phillies lost at home to the Diamondbacks. Turner even got booed at points during the Phillies’ most recent homestand.
The former World Series champion hasn’t produced quite what the Phillies have been expecting so far this year.
For the first time in his career, Turner has a season OPS+ below league average, currently sitting at 91. His OPS is .693, well below his career average. The first year Phillie has always had a high swing and miss rate. Those trends are continuing this season, with Turner ranking in the bottom 10% of the league in Whiff% and Chase Rate, according to Baseball Savant.
Of course, a player’s struggles will be spotlighted if they are being paid a lot of money. That is certainly the case for Turner, who signed a mega 11-year, $300 million contract this winter with Philadelphia. He is coming from the LA Dodgers, who opted not to pay Turner, even after he finished 11th in NL MVP voting.
Side note: Can you believe that Turner has only been an All-Star twice in his eight big-league seasons? The way he gets talked about, you’d think he was there every season.
This is all even more confusing, given the fact that Turner was the hottest hitter on the planet — literally — during the World Baseball Classic back in March. In his six games in that tournament, he had five home runs, which is one more than he has in 46 regular season games this year.
As Turner Goes…
As is the case with a lot of superstar players, as they go, the team goes. The same framework applies when a team is struggling.
The Phillies currently sit at 22-25, in fourth place in the NL East and seven games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves. As a whole, the offense hasn’t been awful, as pitching seems to be their biggest problem. However, Turner is certainly contributing to the Phillies striking out amongst the most of any team in the league.
“Every at-bat, every play, every game is another day to try to do better and try to be the player that I know I am,” Turner said. “If you harp on yesterday or you harp on the last at-bat, it’s just going to snowball on you, you’re not going to be able to turn it around.”
It’s not super uncommon for players to get out to rough starts. However, there were some concerning analytical statistics about Turner for these last few seasons. For instance, Turner has never had a top-50% walk rate, meaning that when he isn’t hitting, he can’t just get on base and keep the line moving. As mentioned earlier, his high chase rate leads to a ton of strikeouts. His hard percentage has also been decreasing since 2021.
On the bright side, Turner will be playing every day unless he gets injured. You can count on Turner to fill out the No. 2 spot in Philadelphia’s batting order.
What do you think? Are these just natural early-season struggles, or are these trends seriously concerning for the Phillies and Turner?
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