Why The Red Sox Shouldn’t Bring Back Justin Turner

Trey Daubert / MLB / November 4, 2023

Why The Red Sox Shouldn’t Bring Back Justin Turner

Justin Turner declined his player option and will join the 2023 MLB free agency pool. The idiot Chaim Bloom is gone but the Sox are going to have to suffer the consequences of the poorly designed contract he gave Turner. Turner will receive a $6.7 million buyout the Red Sox have to pay now because Turner opted out.

Will the Red Sox bring back Turner? After all, he did perform well with Boston in 2023. The red-headed righty slugger was a 2.1 WAR player in 2023 and slashed .276/.345/.455 including 23 homers in 626 plate appearances. The despite the fact that there is no denying that Turner can hit, Boston should pass on bringing him back and there is a very obvious reason why.

Turner, 39, can no longer play the field. He’s a DH only at this stage of his career. The Sox tried to play Turner in the field a few times this year and it didn’t exactly go well. He had a .842 fielding percentage in 57 innings at third base last year. If you’re carrying Turner on your team at this point, it’s to hit and that’s it.

That’s not a luxury the Red Sox can afford and new head man Craig Breslow should know this walking into the job. The Sox are totally jammed up in the outfield. You have five outfielders that are locked into 40-man roster spots (not including Rob Refsnyder who should be DFA’d to clear room. I have no idea why Bloom extended him. That’s a side note I don’t want to dive into). That list includes Alex Verdugo, Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu, Ceddanne Rafaela, and Masataka Yoshida. The latter is why Boston cannot bring back Turner.

Yoshida was really good in his debut season with Boston. Well, really good in the fact that he gets on base. He’s a total liability in the outfield. The guy just doesn’t move well and the outfield arm is shaky. Yoshida is a better bat than Turner and should be the DH heading into 2024. Plus, you can’t really move on from Yoshida. I think it would rub a lot of people the wrong way in Japan and sour relationships there.

Moving Yoshida to DH clears an outfield spot and leaves you with four outfielders. That’s your team. You can still make moves and possibly trade an outfielder. It doesn’t change the fact that it makes no sense to bring back Turner knowing that Yoshida needs to be the DH. Yoshida needs to be on the JD Martinez plan where he’s the primary DH and plays a handful of games at home in left field with the wall protecting his range.