Phillies’ Trea Turner Sure Isn’t Playing Like A $300 Million Man

The Phillies overcame a slow start in 2022 with a rousing run to the World Series, where they fell just short against the Astros. Their high continued into the offseason, when they landed one of the biggest fish in the free agent pond, shortstop Trea Turner, inking him to an 11-year, $300 million deal.

Their fans went ga-ga as he went bananas in the World Baseball Classic this spring – it appeared they had landed a long-term foundational bookend alongside close friend Bryce Harper. There’s no way this could go wrong, especially so soon. Right? Well……

The sample size is admittedly a bit small, but this is getting a bit scary. Through Wednesday’s games, Turner was hitting .236-.280-.371, ranking as one of the least productive regulars in baseball. But it’s only two months, the weather is warming up, he’s getting used to a new team and home park…….things have got to get better, don’t they?

Well, if you read my work here, you know I like to dig a little deeper into the numbers to get a feel for what a player’s production level “should be” based on the granular detail behind the balls he puts in play. Today we’ll subject Turner to that test.

Right up front, I’ve always felt that Turner has been a bit overrated offensively. He simply doesn’t hit the ball that hard in the air, and that puts a pretty hard cap on his power upside. His numbers have looked like those of a power hitter at times in the past because of his speed – some grounders that should be outs are singles for Turner, and many balls that are singles for most hitters become doubles and even triples for him. And the speed is real, and can’t be held against him – but it will eventually fade, and if I am going to evaluate a player solely as a hitter I must take great care not to overvalue his speed.

Turner’s Unadjusted Contact Score – based on his actual numbers – has outpaced his Adjusted Contact Score – the level of production he “should have” produced based on exit speed/launch angle of batted balls – by an average of 27 points (with 100 being average) per season. That’s a lot, and it’s consistently gone in one direction. Quite a bit of his success has been attributable to his legs and not to his bat.

Coming into 2023, Turner’s profile had been fairly consistent over the years:

• Relatively low strikeout and walk rates
• Modest fly ball authority, above average liner and (especially) grounder authority
• Sprays the ball around the field, including on the ground
• Relatively low launch angle

With his durability and his speed, his output has been quite good, especially relative to his position. He’s hit for average, and his SLG has been boosted by his speed. His OBPs, despite a modest walk rate, have been perfectly acceptable for a leadoff man in today’s game. And aesthetically, he’s been one of the most pleasing players in the game to watch. He glides effortlessly, and just might be the best slider I’ve ever seen.

So what’s gone on in 2023? A fan of Turner and/or the Phillies would hope that he’s temporarily misplaced some of his good fortune on batted balls, or that his speed just hasn’t been playing up as it always has, and it’s just a matter of time before things even out. That doesn’t appear to be the case, however.

There are a number of things in play here, but the first is that I fear that someone has been whispering the words “launch angle” in his ear too often. Jason Kipnis was once a really good hitter, and launch angle ruined his life. Entering 2023, Turner had never posted an average launch angle over 11.4 degrees. This year, he’s sitting at 15.6 degrees. His pop up rate has more than doubled since last season, and it’s fractionally off his career high. His 37.1% fly ball rate is a career high, his 40.0% grounder rate a career low.

Now launch angle advocates might say that a grounder can’t leave the yard, and it’s true. But here we have a guy who has never hit the ball very hard in the air and always hit it very hard on the ground – and who has always gotten a tangible production premium from doing so – and he’s purposely lifting the ball more? That’s brutal decision-making.

And there’s one other problem with the grounders he’s hitting that underscores the launch angle issue. For the first time in his career, Turner has become an extreme grounder-puller. Lifting and pulling is not something that someone with his skillset should be focused upon.

Overall, one of the most telling pieces of data in Turner’s 2023 profile is his average line drive exit speed. He’s always been above average in that regard, never averaging less than 93.9 mph. He’s way down at 91.4 mph this season. He’s lifted the ball more at the expense of authority when he does square it up. Not good.

Then there’s the elephant in the room – his K/BB profile. Always fairly neutral, it has been abysmal so far this season, with a career high K rate of 24.3% (previous high of 19.9% in 2019) and a BB rate of 5.8% that is above only his 2016 rookie season mark. For the first time in his career, his K/BB profile is causing his “Tru” Production level to be below his Adjusted Contact Score.

And all of those marks have plummeted as part of his new, not-improved offensive portfolio. His overall Adjusted Contact Score is 71; his “Tru” Production+ is 64 – he “should be” hitting .215-.260-.322, worse than his poor actual numbers. His speed premium (Unadjusted Contact Score of 90, component production and OPS+ of 78) remains intact. This is a pretty serious situation.

Might he be hurt, and is playing through it? Perhaps, and if it was only batted ball authority being affected, I might lean that way. The K/BB situation could conceivably be an eye/visual skills issue, which would affect everything. But I suspect that Turner’s big spring may have convinced him and perhaps Phillies’ brass that they had a power hitter on their hands, and steps needed to be taken to hit more fly balls – if that actually happened, it’s a disastrous decision that could haunt Turner and the Phils for years.