Struggling Nationals Call on Trea Turner
It’s no secret that the Washington Nationals have fallen short of expectations this season. At 62-61, the unanimous NL East favorites from the preseason sit 5.5 games behind the Mets with a discouraging 19% chance of winning the NL East. Things have been particularly ugly of late, as the Nats have won just 11 of their last 30 games.
As Dave Cameron pointed out last week, several of the biggest culprits for the team’s struggles are members of the team’s offensive core. Anthony Rendon and Ryan Zimmerman have been bad. Jayson Werth’s been worse than that. But perhaps the biggest disappointment has been the team’s shortstop, Ian Desmond, who was projected for the second-highest WAR among Nationals hitters by ZiPS. Desmond’s .229/.279/.384 batting line has put him within spitting distance of replacement level — a far cry from his preseason ZiPS forecast of 4.0 WAR.
Despite his struggles, the Nationals stuck with Desmond over the season’s first four-and-a-half months, trotting him out there in 119 of their 123 games this season. But on Friday, the team began to diverge from the status quo. After weeks of speculation, the Nats finally summoned prospect Trea Turner to the big leagues to help solidify the shortstop position from here on out.
Turner’s 2015 season has been an interesting one, to say the least. Although the Padres dealt his services to Washington in the Wil Myers trade last offseason, a silly rule forced him to play out the first half of the year in the Padres organization. He hit .322/.385/.471 in 58 games with San Diego’s Double-A affiliate before he was finally permitted to join the Nationals organization. The Nats bumped Turner up to Triple-A a couple of weeks after his arrival, and he kept right on hitting. The 22-year-old slashed .314/.353/.431 in 48 games at the minors’ highest level before the Nationals felt it was time to promote him to majors.
Turner’s strikeout, walk and power numbers were nearly indistinguishable from league average at both of his stops this year. But that profile’s actually quite impressive for a 22-year-old, especially when you throw in his defensive abilities and his double-plus speed. Turner swiped 29 bags in the minors, and his foot speed also helped prop up his .390 BABIP on the year.
KATOH’s pretty impressed with the work Turner’s done this year. My system pegs the speedy shortstop for 5.6 WAR through age 28, which put him 50th overall on KATOH’s updated list from last week. Kiley McDaniel is even higher on Turner. He had him 15th overall in his mid-season update, up from 84th in the preseason.
Everybody loves a good comp, so let’s generate a few for Turner using his minor-league numbers. Using league-adjusted, regressed stats, along with age, I calculated the Mahalanobis Distance between Turner’s performance in Triple-A this year and every season in Triple-A since 1990 in which a batter recorded at least 400 plate appearances. Below, you’ll find a list of historical players whose performances were nearest and dearest to Turner’s, ranked from most to least similar.
| Mah Dist | Name | PA thru 28 | WAR thru 28 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.90 | Alcides Escobar* | 3,713 | 12.0 |
| 2 | 1.55 | Henry Mateo | 251 | 0.0 |
| 3 | 1.64 | Carlos Garcia | 1,926 | 1.9 |
| 4 | 1.78 | Peter Bourjos* | 1,634 | 10.3 |
| 5 | 1.96 | Anthony Gose* | 1,000 | 1.6 |
| 6 | 2.01 | Willie Harris | 1,015 | 0.0 |
| 7 | 2.16 | Jayson Nix | 869 | 0.9 |
| 8 | 2.22 | Chris Latham | 238 | 0.0 |
| 9 | 2.28 | Jimmy Paredes* | 813 | 0.0 |
| 10 | 2.28 | Reggie Taylor | 548 | 0.0 |
| 11 | 2.43 | Nate McLouth | 2,363 | 7.5 |
| 12 | 2.44 | Willie Romero | 0 | 0.0 |
| 13 | 2.48 | Jacoby Ellsbury | 2,568 | 17.8 |
| 14 | 2.55 | Jermaine Allensworth | 1,190 | 0.0 |
| 15 | 2.56 | Amaury Garcia | 27 | 0.2 |
| 16 | 2.68 | Andres Santana | 2 | 0.0 |
| 17 | 2.77 | Xavier Avery* | 107 | 0.0 |
| 18 | 2.80 | Doug Brady | 23 | 0.0 |
| 19 | 2.84 | Chone Figgins | 2,323 | 8.4 |
| 20 | 2.93 | Santiago Perez | 160 | 0.0 |
*Hitters who have yet to play their age-28 seasons.
And now just the shortstops…
| Rank | Mah Dist | Name | PA thru 28 | WAR thru 28 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.90 | Alcides Escobar* | 3,713 | 12.0 |
| 3 | 1.64 | Carlos Garcia | 1,926 | 1.9 |
| 20 | 2.93 | Santiago Perez | 160 | 0.0 |
| 33 | 3.21 | Chase d’Arnaud | 157 | 0.0 |
| 47 | 3.63 | Joaquin Arias | 855 | 0.9 |
Alcides Escobar stands out both in terms of performance and similarity, but there are plenty of other interesting names as well. While his career WAR total is unimpressive, Carlos Garcia had his moments in the 1990s, and even made an All-Star team in 1994. And although they aren’t shortstops, Peter Bourjos, Anthony Gose and Nate McLouth have all enjoyed some degree of big league success with offensive profiles similar to Turner’s. Jacoby Ellsbury, meanwhile, ultimately blossomed into a star.
Although he was one of the better hitters at both of his minor-league stops this season, it seems as though his bat still has some developing left to do. ZiPS and Steamer forecast him for roughly an 80 wRC+ from here on out. This is more or less what Desmond’s done this year, and falls short of even the most pessimistic rest-of-season projection for Desmond. More than likely, Turner’s not a better player than Desmond is right now. The Nationals are aware of this, which is why Turner’s only received three plate appearances since Friday’s call up. Turner will almost certainly steal a few starts in the coming weeks, but it’s doubtful he’ll usurp Desmond as the team’s primary shortstop.
Still, that’s not to say Turner can’t help the Nationals down the stretch in a part-time role. A plus defensive shortstop with 70 speed doesn’t need to hit all that much to be a successful big leaguer. Look no further than Alcides Escobar, Turner’s top Mahalanobis comp, who’s accumulated a respectable 12 career WAR to date despite his 76 wRC+. Furthermore, Turner’s excellent speed makes him an ideal pinch-running option late in games.
With Desmond’s contract set to expire at year’s end, the door is wide open for Turner to take over as the team’s everyday shortstop as soon as next year’s opening day. Going by this year’s minor-league performance, he figures to have a bright future ahead of him. For the next few weeks, however, he’ll fill the less glamorous role of part-time infielder. Following the team’s free fall through the NL East, it’s all hands on deck on Washington. And Turner’s easily one of the best 25 players in the Nationals organization.
Chris works in economic development by day, but spends most of his nights thinking about baseball. He writes for Pinstripe Pundits, FanGraphs and The Hardball Times. He's also on the twitter machine: @_chris_mitchell None of the views expressed in his articles reflect those of his daytime employer.
Perfect timing:
http://www.banknotesindustries.com/men-surrounded-by-things/trea-turner-in-a-turner-painting-surrounded-by-trays/
Makes me wonder if anyone’s ever traced Trayce Thompson.
Trayce Thompson surrounded by tracings of his son?
How about they just use the guy already on their roster having a 2+ WAR season. Don’t need Turner to be a savior when Espinosa has been saving the team all year.
http://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=ss&stats=fld&lg=all&qual=40&type=1&season=2015&month=0&season1=2015&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&sort=24,a
Yunel Escobar is day-to-day, so Espinosa is needed at 2B anyway.
Ah, the trusty ol’ five game sample size. Definitely not meaningless for defensive numbers!
The Nats’ recent struggles have come as Desmond and Zimmerman have figured things out, making them only more frustrating.
Yeah, Desmond has been arguably the Nats best player over the last month, with 8 HRs and an OPS around .900 with only two errors in those 31 games. The Nationals would have to be crazy to bench Desmond in favor of Turner at this point.
I’m pretty surprised at Alcides Escobar being the top comparison given that Turner has struck out significantly more often at every stop than Escobar did at any of his.
Most teams, when they bring up a young player from the minors who’s going well, put him into the starting lineup so as not to arrest his momentum. So why haven’t the Nats?
I find this genuinely perplexing also. If they weren’t gonna play him, why call him up?
Smells like a decision from higher-ups, who wanted to ‘do something’ but didn’t have the manager on board.
There are actually some managers who did/do this to call ups regularly. Ron Washington was particularly horrible about keeping prospects benched in favor of veterans. If Ron Gardenhire were still coaching the Twins, Sano would probably be playing every third day in favor of a plucky slap hitter.
Gardy was infatuated with “scrappy” ballplayers that reminded him of himself toiling away as a youngster in the Mets organization. He also loved giving his players nicknames that ended in “ie” such as Mornie, Blackie, and Plouffie.
Thats every baseball manager. As a Braves fan, the only thing fredi gonzalez can do well is slap an ie (or y) on the end of someones name. Bobby was pretty good at it also
I think in this case its because the minor league season is almost over; Turner has played 116 minor league games this season and there were only 18 games remaining in Syracuse’s schedule when Turner was called up. Perhaps they feel that getting a taste of the majors for 18 games is as valuable to Turner as minor league games 117-134. And if they really miss those 18 games, they can send him to the Arizona Fall League.
So the bottom line is that the Nats called Turner up because they need the best 25 man roster that they can muster to have any shot at catching the Mets. Turner isn’t better than Desmond, Espinosa, Rendon or Escobar and so won’t get many (if any) starts. He’s almost certainly better than Tyler Moore, Matt den Dekker, Dan Uggla or Emmanuel Burriss as a bench player.
of course, this move may have significant consequences for team control of his age 28 season They did this for a few pinch running appearances. They have other pinch runners on their 40 man roster, and are operating with an 8 man bullpen. Yes, they are on the fringe of a pennant race, and there is a chance he is a better pinch runner than Burriss, Difo, Goodwin, whoever. He could be remembered as Dave Roberts. That said, keeping him in the minors an extra 4 days in 2016 or losing his age 28 season probably is going to cost you several more games than the improvement in WPA for a high leverage pinch running appearance that as a remote chance of being the key to beating out the Mets.
. . . an extra 45 days . . .
Team Control was the first thing I thought about when I saw that he was called up. On the one hand, it does make it a little easier to have him make the Opening Day roster next year instead of giving the half-hearted “he needs about 15 games of seasoning before he’s ready” next spring. But it’s surprising that they’d give away a year of control for him to be a role player.
Elsewhere in the division, the Mets lost a year of control for Michael Conforto (compared to a mid-April call-up) but he’s hit well enough (270/365/508, 144 wRC+) that he’s playing virtually any time a righty is on the mound. He’s a big part of their team for the stretch run, with Cuddyer only starting against lefties. It wouldn’t have made sense for them to consider a call-up if he would only be a pinch hitter.
With the national already 6 down in the win column and the mets having the easiest schedule remaining in the major with only the Yankees and national left as opponents over .500 and Washington is 1 game over 500. The mets could easily go 21-17 the rest of the way as a .500 team. if they do that the national will need to go 28-11 to make the playoff
The national have very little margin of error, they need everyone on deck and performing to make The playoff, turner is one of their last roll of the dice