The Trouble with Trea Turner

Trea Turner is well known for his all-around game and generational speed. But how long can it stick into his newly-signed mega-contract?

Trea Turner was a hot commodity this past offseason, eventually agreeing on an 11-year/$300 million deal with the Phillies. He fills a massive hole in their infield left by Didi Gregorius' sudden decline and reunites him with former teammate Bryce Harper in the process. Many fans begged their favorite teams' front offices to acquire him at any cost, believing his speed could revolutionize the lineup. The market decided that the contract should run until age 40, which given Turner's skillset is carried by his elite speed, seems completely ridiculous. 

Let's start with a comparison.

   Player One, SS, 29

Player Two, SS, 29

I love Savant for their well-rounded pictures of players at a glance. Which player would you want more? Both play the same position, are the same age, etc. Player One is worse defensively (OAA) and in overall plate discipline metrics like chase rate and whiff rate, while clearly better in Max EV, expected Batting Average, and Sprint Speed. Remember the numbers represent percentiles, i.e., a 55 in Average Exit Velocity means it's better than 55% of other hitters in that season.

Alright. You may have guessed that the right one is Francisco Lindor, and the left is Trea Turner. If so, good work! The one glaring omission is baserunning runs above average, which Turner beats Lindor on, but not by a glaring margin - just 3 runs in 2022. They're nearly identical otherwise, which is puzzling because many see Turner as heads and shoulders over him, as reflected in the reactions to the contracts they signed when they signed them. I believe a lot of the confusion comes from people not understanding the nuances of how Turner's play style has changed over time while putting excessive weight on his batting average, stolen bases, and sliding ability. 

How Turner Has Changed His Approach: Plate Discipline

I'll start with how Turner is different as a hitter than in the past. He once was the stereotypical leadoff-hitting shortstop with solid defense, a good eye (albeit with no walks), and a slightly above-average bat full of ground balls. Since then, he has taken on a more modern approach and traded in contact for power, which is a strange choice given his speed. His 85th percentile chase rate from a few years ago has gone in a continuous downward spiral to 22nd, the once above-average SS is now closer to average, and his overall hitting profile is much more Fly ball and swing-and-miss oriented. 

The main issue is the chase rate. Rickey Henderson was so devastating because he did anything to get on base to be able to steal. He took his walks happily, knowing he would terrify opposing pitchers on the bases. Despite Rickey’s pitchers knowing this, he still walked at a 16%+ clip across his career. Turner, with his 6.4% BB rate, is no Rickey Henderson. Nobody compares him to Henderson, but Henderson is the epitome of efficient base stealing from the sheer volume of times he was on base; Turner's inability to take walks will undoubtedly hurt his on-base rate, and as a direct byproduct, his value on the bases as he ages. He ranked 23rd in chase rate last year, and the only other two players in his realm skillswise near him on the list are Rafael Devers and Julio Rodriguez. Devers ranked 8th in chase rate last year, but his Savant page remains a sea of red offensively, while also inducing walks at a league-average rate. Julio is a rookie and an elite defensive CF, yet his chase rate is similar to the veteran Turner. This change is a conscious effort, yet it has created minimal results. While K and chase rate increases are OK if a quality of contact increase comes in tow, as I will soon demonstrate, that isn't the case.

Compared to the rest of the league, his chase, whiff, and walk rates are about as bad as ever. His K rate barely moved last year, but is that sustainable? Remember that 2020 was only 60 games, so any improvements (or regression) there should be heavily scrutinized.

How Turner Has Changed His Approach: Fly balls

Turner regressed against both fastballs and breaking balls last year, recording career lows in xWOBA (quality of contact) against both fastballs and breaking balls. That certainly helps explain his regression in discipline. Particularly concerning are breaking balls, where he had a 35.5% whiff rate and a drop in hard-hit rate by 6% compared to 2021. His barrel rate went up, but that's likely because he generally hit more fly balls, not because his overall quality of contact improved in any significant way. Remember that pitchers are also shifting to more and more breaking balls every year because of how hard fastballs get hit. Speaking of fly balls…

While EV is generally an important stat, it's typically more practical to focus on fly ball EV because that is where the actual production happens. Hitting ground balls significantly harder than the average player isn't going to be a particularly efficient offense, especially for Turner, who's trying to beat them out, but hitting a fly ball hard is the dictionary definition of a barrel. The fly ball EV ranking has the typical suspects at the top: Judge, Alvarez, Schwarber, Stanton, Guerrero Jr. Where's Trea Turner, who's sold out for fly balls recently (min. 100 balls in play)? Dead average.

We can also look at pulled fly balls. MLB hitters pull 65% of home runs, and the league as a whole is 67% better than average with a pulled batted ball. Perhaps Turner performs a little better when specifically pulling, something he likes to do and can easily get away with, considering his league-leading speed. With an adjustment to 25 balls in play for the smaller sample, he finished 2022 in the bottom 25% with 92.7 mph. Uh oh. Hitting more fly balls will only help you long-term if you can hit 'em hard.

His xWOBA has seen some modest improvement, but it came at the cost of general volatility. His fly balls are hit as hard, relative to the rest of the league, as a few years ago, despite a newfound focus on creating and producing with them. 

Some may argue that Turner's adjustment to fly balls is optimal theoretically because the increase in home runs is worth the trade-off. Usually, people exchange contact rate for power and fly ball rate, and Turner didn't get the former. This change in approach may have led to his outstanding 2021 season and is sustainable while he remains at his peak, but I don't see how it's sustainable over the long term - the future is what the Phillies paid him for - with chase rates that will implore every pitcher to give him little to work with. 

[FanGraphs]

I first saw this great graphic on FanGraphs from a recent video on Turner and his free agency by Baseball Juice. It's a little cluttered, but we're focused on the 29-30-year-old threshold and beyond here. The two lines of importance are the dark green line for contact on pitches out of the zone (O-Contact) and the brown line, which represents the swing rate on pitches outside of the zone (O-Swing). O-Swing appears to remain stable throughout one's career, but O-Contact completely plummets after age 31. Considering Turner has already seen a massive downturn at just 29, it's not a good sign moving forward. Without solid discipline, his offensive contribution is almost sure to crumble in the next few years.

A Phantastic Career Year

People started hyping Trea Turner after his 2020 season, where he put up career bests in every rate metric and was on pace to have career highs in every counting stat (30 HR/30 SB with 159 wRC+ is pretty good.) As time passes, however, it appears the 2020 season was more of a convoluted way to get great players for cheap in 2021 fantasy (hello, Jose Altuve and Max Muncy) than an accurate indication of player progression. Juan Soto learned to hit fly balls, DJ LeMahieu had a 177 wRC+, and Jose Abreu won an MVP. Jose Ramirez was still robbed, by the way.

The big difference for Turner in 2020 offensively, which made him such an all-around beast, was that he was making more contact with the ball than ever while concurrently barreling it up more than ever. His 82nd percentile whiff rate was the best for his career, leading to a K rate almost 4% better than any other season, and his 9.5% barrel rate is nearly 2% more than any other season. Not to mention, his Pulled Fly ball EV was in the 70th percentile, while every other year is 40th or lower. That's not a coincidence. We can skirt by the poor defense and out-of-the-ordinary base-stealing efficiency (only 75% success rate? Unacceptable.) because his career stats imply it's a blip that is not representative of him in general. But one can easily argue the same for his great offensive performance.

If Trea Turner played like he did in 2020 every year, a top-10 nod and $300 million over 11 years would be far more justifiable. This is the template for Turner, or any player really, to succeed. [BaseballSavant]

2020 was the perfect mix for Turner offensively. He retained his early-year ability to stay disciplined in the box while also making the quality of contact he's been looking for ever since. 

Defense and the Shift

Nothing may be more uncertain than Turner's defense: while he's been elite in previous years, his +0 OAA defense last year with -3 OAA at SS itself (he was positive at 2B when shifting) is concerning. Turner appears to be a good, but not great, shortstop going forward. How will he fare with the shift changes making him play closer to SS? He may have been taking it easy to avoid injury, but he was just a +2 in 2021 with a dreadful 2020. I think aiming for anything more than a repeat of 2021 is too tall of a task, with his last great defensive seasons coming in 2018 and 2019. I’ve always seen him as more of a 2B, but the Phillies signed him explicity to fill their SS hole, making any move in the near-term unlikely.

It's also worth noting the change in scenery this offseason. At SS last year, he was a -7 to his right, which was once often filled by Justin Turner, who was a respectable -2 OAA overall at 37 years old. Now he relies on young Alec Bohm, who was -7 at 3B and -9 overall. Bohm's best direction is to his left, which may help Turner, and Turner's best direction by far throughout his career is to the right. Is it just an interesting fact or a sign of further defensive regression? Food for thought.

Projecting the Future

Turner definitely deserves credit for consistent 6-win performances at SS the past two years - especially his 2021 season, which had him 5th in fWAR/650. Still, they were both on the back of BABIPs that were higher than when he tried to hit lots of ground balls to abuse his speed several years ago. That can't stick, and in terms of park factors, his new home of Citizens Bank is almost equivalent to Dodger Stadium for righties. According to Statcast, Dodger Stadium is better in every way for right-handed hitters - especially home runs - other than getting triples (very interesting, given his speed). How much will that help him? Will his decline in arm strength and defensive ability continue in 2023? Hard to say. 

ZiPS, created by FanGraphs writer Dan Szymborski, is the best projection system for long-term projections, which is what we're concerned about here. It compares a given player's string of recent seasons to similar stretches other players have had in the past to get an idea of how they will trend in the future. ZiPS loves Turner, slating him for 6.6 fWAR/650 next season, 2nd amongst all hitters (I give him credit for ~5). Despite the high marks for the near term, ZiPS believes Turner will fall to 5.1 fWAR/650 by 2025, a steep decline for someone who will only be 32 and in the 3rd year of a 11 year contract. They fall into a similar line of thinking to me - a cliff looming from volatility and loss of bat-to-ball skills - with a much higher initial point.  

The research agrees, too. This article shows that hitters peak between 27 and 30, depending on who you ask and what data you choose to interrogate. Turner will be 30 next year with mediocre  to above-average offensive and defensive characteristics across the board, with a significant battle against his chase rate on the horizon. How he fares in that battle will determine how long he'll remain All-Star caliber and how long the contract is tolerable.

No matter the dataset you use, the future looks bleak for all hitters. RAA is Runs Above Average. (10 RAA ~= 1 win). A player loses around 5 RAA, or 0.5 fWAR, per year on average across all eras. [FanGraphs]

In the end, Trea Turner is a quality player. I have him as around the 20th-best position player in the league, which is the vicinity where respected projection systems Steamer, The BATX, and ATC peg him for next year, as well as where he landed this past season in terms of fWAR/650. I think putting him as a top-10 player is a little too optimistic, given the tools he displayed last season. And I certainly believe that the contract they gave to Trea Turner will be one they regret, so long as they do not win a World Series in the next few years.

Credit again to Baseball Juice for a great Youtube video about Turner that inspired me to look into him more. Check his video out here: