Justin Turner and the Dodgers Reunite
While the Dodgers spent plenty of the offseason upgrading their roster, they conspicuously avoided one spot. Third base, which has been Justin Turner’s domain since Los Angeles signed him before the 2014 season, lay fallow. With Turner on the market, it always felt like a foregone conclusion that the two sides would reunite. On Saturday, they made it official; the 36-year-old is returning on a two-year deal worth $34 million with a club option for a third year, as… well, as Justin Turner first reported.
When Turner last left the field as a Dodger, the moment was bittersweet. His team had just won the World Series after years of failure, but he was removed during the clinching Game 6 after testing positive for COVID-19. Despite that, he returned to the field, maskless, to celebrate with his teammates. Rumors of discipline swirled, though MLB eventually declined to enforce any punishment. Days later, he became a free agent.
Despite that strange backdrop, Turner always looked like a good bet to return to the Dodgers. As a native of Southern California, he has ties to the city; heck, they have a Justin Turner day there. In addition, the team’s only roster hole was at third base, where it had left Edwin Ríos atop the depth chart despite only 139 plate appearances in the majors — a weak link in an otherwise monstrous lineup.
No longer. Turner has been almost metronomically consistent since joining the Dodgers in 2014. His lowest WAR total (excluding the shortened 2020 season) was 3.4, and his highest 5.4. His worst batting line was still excellent: .275/.339/.493 in 2016. His best batting line fell just short of true superstar territory — .312/.406/.518 in 2018, or maybe .340/.404/.493 in a half-season in ’14. He’s simply been a great hitter, year in and year out, by walking, limiting strikeouts, and making solid contact.
That’s a reductive way of describing Turner, but it’s also a fair one. He might not excel anywhere, but he does everything well enough to make the total package sing. The plate discipline at the core of his game is the same every year: He chases less than average and makes plenty of contact when he swings. The combination limits his swinging strike rate, which in turn limits his strikeout rate, like clockwork:
| Year | Chase% | Lg Avg | Contact% | Lg Avg | SwStr% | Lg Avg | K% | Lg Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 26.4% | 30.7% | 84.9% | 79.3% | 6.9% | 9.5% | 18.0% | 20.4% |
| 2015 | 25.4% | 30.6% | 84.4% | 78.8% | 7.2% | 9.9% | 16.2% | 20.4% |
| 2016 | 24.4% | 30.3% | 84.0% | 78.2% | 7.1% | 10.1% | 17.2% | 21.1% |
| 2017 | 25.0% | 29.9% | 85.4% | 77.5% | 6.4% | 10.4% | 10.3% | 21.6% |
| 2018 | 25.8% | 30.9% | 88.5% | 76.9% | 4.9% | 10.7% | 12.7% | 22.3% |
| 2019 | 28.1% | 31.6% | 84.5% | 76.2% | 7.0% | 11.1% | 16.0% | 23.0% |
| 2020 | 22.6% | 30.6% | 80.5% | 75.3% | 8.4% | 11.3% | 14.9% | 23.4% |
Want fewer strikeouts in the game? Make more hitters like Turner. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be a skill you can teach; Turner has been doing roughly this since he made the majors in 2009.
The other part of the equation is hitting the ball hard, and you could call that an area of concern — if you don’t look too closely:
| Year | HR/FB% | ISO | wOBACON |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 10.8% | .153 | .453 |
| 2015 | 13.9% | .197 | .405 |
| 2016 | 14.8% | .218 | .393 |
| 2017 | 10.8% | .208 | .401 |
| 2018 | 10.1% | .205 | .411 |
| 2019 | 17.0% | .219 | .399 |
| 2020 | 7.3% | .153 | .385 |
Fewer home runs per fly ball? Tied for his lowest ISO since reaching the Dodgers back in the deadball era of 2014? Sure sounds like the power is fading.
It’s not. Let’s look at some better numbers:
| Year | Barrel% | xwOBACON | Hard Hit% | Air Hard Hit% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 5.6% | .406 | 38.2% | 45.5% |
| 2016 | 8.1% | .403 | 40.9% | 43.3% |
| 2017 | 7.6% | .412 | 38.1% | 40.2% |
| 2018 | 6.7% | .404 | 36.7% | 38.0% |
| 2019 | 7.3% | .417 | 42.4% | 45.7% |
| 2020 | 11.2% | .407 | 44.0% | 46.0% |
Air hard hit rate is one you might not recognize offhand, but it’s straightforward: the percentage of balls hit in the air that are hit 95 mph or harder. Just to anchor you, league average is 42%. In other words, Turner is hitting the ball as hard as ever and barreling it up more often than ever before. Despite a dip in production on contact in 2020, the components that go into it are steady.
That’s not to say that everything about Turner’s game is timeless. His defense has been trending downward for years. From 2016 to ’17, he was worth 12 runs above average by DRS and 7.4 by UZR — solidly better than average. From ’18 to ’20, he was one run above average per DRS and nine runs below average per UZR. Both systems think his defense has cratered, and StatCast agrees; he’s gone from seven runs above average in 2017 to two runs below average since. That matches the eye test; at 36, Turner isn’t as spry as he used to be.
In fact, Turner’s age is the reason he isn’t getting a far larger contract. Two years at $17 million per wouldn’t be enough to snag someone with his talent if age-related decline weren’t a major concern. ZiPS and Steamer both expect him to post the worst batting line of his Dodgers career — age being undefeated in the long run. No one in history has defied the odds forever, and the length and value of Turner’s contract reflects that.
It also reflects an oft-unmentioned truth about him. For all his production, he’s been only average at staying on the field throughout his career. In 2016, he managed 622 plate appearances — the only time he’s eclipsed 600, and it’s not like he missed by some narrow margin. That’s also the last year that he made even 550 plate appearances. Sign Turner, and you’re likely to need a second third baseman to handle some residual starts.
That suits the Dodgers just fine. Ríos might not be ready to start every day for a World Series favorite, but he’s a capable backup, and Los Angeles won’t suffer overmuch if he needs to make 20 starts in Turner’s place. It’s good to be the Dodgers: When you’re overflowing with talent, you can sign brilliant-but-fragile players without suffering when they miss time.
In fact, there’s basically nothing to dislike about this signing. Could Turner have gotten more money somewhere else? Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine a team who wants a high-ceiling, questionable-health third baseman more than the Dodgers. Could Los Angeles have aimed higher? Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine they could find someone better without paying far more. It’s simply a great match. Turner wanted to play for the Dodgers, the Dodgers wanted Turner, and everything worked to plan.
Ben is a writer at FanGraphs. He can be found on Bluesky @benclemens.
Dodgers definitely did make a strong counter to all the padres moves with the bauer signing and re signing of turner.
Depth chart standings had them equal a month ago but now after those signings the dodgers are ranked 3 wins ahead again so they are clearly the team to beat in the NL and the majors too.
Dodgers got criticised for lowering payroll a little to get under the tree hold but now they are using their full financial force again.
The dodgers are just the ultimate superteam with a top front office, great player development and farm system and a top of the line payroll. They just have no weaknesses like some other supposed super teams had (for example the cubs with developing pitchers).
It’s still a bit mind-blowing that he completely escaped any repercussions for needlessly endangering his teammates (as well as staff, media, security), all simply because he wanted to join the party. It’s a manifestation of a certain kind of entitled mindset that is persistently enabled. Anyway, good pickup for the bastions of moral team-building in LA.
The Dodgers front office also worked with known human traffickers to help acquire Cuban defectors, covered up an employee’s sexual assault of hotel staff on a team business trip, and covered up repeated workplace sexual harassment against their own employee (Alanna Rizzo) without repercussions as well. Andrew Friedman understands the lesson that Jeff Luhnow never did – access is how the media earns their living.
No one in the BBWAA is going to write scathing exposés of the Friedman front office if they could instead write about their excellent player development and get quotes from players and team employees that will sell papers and generate clicks. Luhnow was famously tightlipped when it came to the media, so reporters didn’t have any access to begin with, which made them much more willing to criticize the Houston front office.
Outside of games not being played and other things that cost them money, the leagues don’t really care about anything but putting on games and making money. They just want you to think they do. The NFL has taken this to a high art. They don’t care if the players do drugs, carry guns illegally, beat their wives and girlfriends, haze younger players, use racist or homophobic slurs, rob convenience stores, or anything else. But they know that many people do care, so they feel a need to look like they care.
okay, so i’m a dodger fan, so take everything i’m about to say with a large grain of salt. that said, though turner certainly bears some of the responsibility for his grievous error in returning to the field, the responsibility isn’t his alone. it’s clear to me that the league could have done more to initially protect him from contracting covid (turner was the dodgers’ only in-season positive case, and it seems plausible that either the league’s less-strict hotel bubble than for example the NBA’s or their decision to allow fans, of whom only a minority remained masked, into the NLCS and World Series “bubbles”, especially given the need to close the roof of the stadium during at least one world series game, are how he contracted it) as well as to prevent him from going back on the field (he was allowed to remain in the clubhouse, alone, with only his wife and a security guard, and if you were a low-paid contracted security guard, would you physically restrain someone you knew to be positive for COVID to prevent them going back on the field? no, he should have been immediately escorted to a car and taken back to the hotel upon leaving the field). Indeed, his own teammates, convinced they had already been exposed regardless, were apparently texting him to come join them on the field. i absolutely agree that he shouldn’t have made the choice he did, but in that moment, at what must have felt like the culminating moment of his entire life, i can understand why he did, even if that’s no excuse. It seems to me that the key to his escaping of consequences was that his apology and acceptance of responsibility – and lack of a suspension – was paired with his agreement not to file a grievance against the league in which their own piece of the responsibility might have been more widely publicized.
Any negligence on the part of the league that led to him contracting COVID should be considered completely separately from his own decisions. If he knew he had tested positive, he should not have come back out on the field- that should not have been dependent on how he contracted it, or whether he was immediately escorted from the stadium, or how much security was supervising him, or whether teammates told him they figured they were already exposed. It should have come down to his own personal interpretation of the unwritten social contract that we have with other human beings, and what we owe to each other or not. He clearly decided that his own desires superseded his responsibility to help other people stay safe. The math involved in that equation– “my desire for a reward > other people’s right to not get sick and possibly die”– is pretty gross.
i don’t disagree with anything you said, like i said i think he made the wrong choice, and i’m not trying to defend that choice. if i had been in his position, i sure hope i would have chosen differently, because i agree with you, social-contract wise. i’m just saying he should never have been in a position to be able to make the wrong choice in the first place. he can’t endanger people if he’s not even in the stadium by the time the celebration happens, so the two things aren’t as discrete as they may seem. the league knows it screwed up, or else a no-suspension-for-no-grievance deal would never have been on the table in the first place. you said it’s mind-blowing that he was able to escape repercussions, and all i’m trying to do is give context as to how that happened.
If he had a legitimate grievance regarding safety protocols, filing it might have gone farther towards keeping players protected in the future- this season, for example. Instead, he traded the threat of a grievance to escape any personal responsibility for his own actions? I wasn’t aware of that, you’re right, and now my needle is moving from “mind-blown” to “disgusted”.
if you don’t think the league ought to share the brunt of that disgust, then i’m really not sure what to tell you. i don’t think it’s worse or better for turner to accept that offer than for the league to propose it in the first place, after all, if they were a moral bastion themselves, they’d say, nope, we’re suspending you, grievance be damned. i’m just trying to illustrate how the blame for everything that happened at the end of game six belongs on the head of multiple parties, justin turner included and perhaps foremost, but also including the league office.
This is an article about Justin Turner, the player and the person; he had a choice, and he made an extraordinarily selfish one. If he traded a grievance to avoid punishment, that is a second choice that illustrates putting himself ahead of others. It’s maybe as bad as or worse than what Bauer has been criticized for, in terms of the harmful repercussions it might have had. Sure, the team and the league were each negligent in their own ways- but that shouldn’t be used to give him a pass, because he was in control of his own actions. Deflecting the blame to the league is understandable if you’re a fan, and I would probably be defending him, too, in your shoes; but I honestly can’t see any way to judge his behavior as anything less than reprehensible.
…no. Turner accepted the consequences of his actions, apologized, and has continued to support the LA community, especially those most vulnerable. He made a terrible mistake, and he should have had worse consequences–no doubt–but comparing him to Bauer, who has no remorse, who does nothing for any community, who’s perfectly fine aiming harassment at whomever he likes online and pretending he has no idea what’s going on…
c’mon
He “accepted the consequences of his actions” by trading a grievance to avoid punishment. 9 people in the Dodgers organization tested positive after the World Series, and I don’t think any of us can safely estimate how many others those 9 may have passed it on to. It’s a disease that has killed almost half a million people in this country alone- why is it unreasonable to suggest that the repercussions of spreading it unnecessarily may have or could have been worse than the repercussions of Bauer harassing people? You’re right that Bauer has expressed much less remorse than Turner. Lucky for the Dodgers, they have both guys!
>his apology and acceptance of responsibility
https://twitter.com/redturn2/status/1324807221725728768/photo/1
You can see for yourself, but as a Dodgers fan who likes Turner, I see more excuses and defensive explanations than an apology and acceptance of responsibility.
He says things like ‘I sincerely apologize “to everyone on the field”‘ and ‘in hindsight’, ‘holds [himself] to the absolute highest standards’ to implicitly suggest that using hindsight and high standards are partially necessary to know his actions were wrong.
Overall, I’m disappointed in Turner’s actions, I’m disappointed in MLB’s treatment of the whole incident and I’m very very disappointed in his “apology.”
Along with Molina and the Cards, this was the easiest signing to project…
Great article about a piece of good news for all fans, except possibly fans of the other teams in the NL west.