Surprise: Trea Turner Is Still Really Good at Baseball

When the Phillies signed Trea Turner to an 11-year, $300 million contract over the winter, the second-largest contract in franchise historical past, they had been in all probability ready for Yr 11 to be a bit underwhelming, not a lot Yr One. Turner bought off to a superb begin in Philadelphia, starting the season with 12 hits within the first seven video games with two triples. As soon as his seven-game hitting streak was snapped, the following 4 months become an unbelievable slog: .225/.282/.354 with 10 homers. On the morning of August 5, his OPS hit a season-low .656. However over the past month, Turner has been one of many hottest hitters in baseball.

In the course of the hottest months of the summer season, probably the most widespread questions I bought was some variant of “is Trea Turner damaged?” My common reply was that he’d in all probability be positive, even when expectations needed to be lowered a bit, but it surely felt rather less convincing. The zStats I ran for hitters in early August as a part of the “full-fat” ZiPS noticed Turner as having a greater season than was mirrored in his general numbers, with a .728 zOPS in comparison with that .656 mark. That wasn’t sufficient to make the leaderboard, headed by Spencer Torkelson (with a .975 OPS since then), but it surely was nonetheless a big hole. And I doubt the Phillies or the followers would have felt a lot reduction even with the .264/.309/.419 line that zStats gave him.

Again then, I re-ran Turner’s long-term projections to see what sort of bounceback ZiPS was anticipating. Whereas the pc noticed a fairly good restoration in 2024, it was effectively off his preseason numbers. There was additionally much more threat within the combine, considerably pushing his numbers in future years down.

However from that low level, Turner has been completely smoking. During the last calendar month, he’s fourth within the league in WAR and is the WAR chief amongst shortstops.

Turner has additionally hit the second-most dwelling runs in baseball, behind solely his teammate Schwarber, because of a five-game homer streak that was rudely snapped on Sunday. However his placement in these ranks is greater than the product of a run of round-trippers. Even in case you put the cutoff level proper earlier than the primary recreation of his homer streak, Turner was nonetheless hitting .345/.378/.619 with 13 extra-base hits in 90 plate appearances.

How has he executed it? Improved plate self-discipline has been part of the equation. Turner has been a extra aggressive hitter the previous couple of years, and his out-of-zone swing share spiked to 36% final season with the Dodgers, simply the best in his profession to that time. For the primary 4 months of 2023, that went even greater, to 39%. Whereas he’s nonetheless remained aggressive over the past month, together with his swing fee hanging regular at 52%, the kinds of pitches he’s swung as has modified; his out-of-zone swings dropped by 5 share factors, and his in-zone swing elevated by the identical margin. This type of enchancment is tougher than it sounds, as lowering out-of-zone swings as a rule leads to fewer zone swings as a consequence of elevated passivity. Staying aggressive whereas seeing these sorts of actions within the numbers displays how proficient a hitter Turner is.

Unsurprisingly, hitting higher pitches has resulted in higher outcomes. Statcast hard-hit numbers stabilize rapidly, and Turner’s 48% hard-hit fee over the past month is effectively above his 40% fee over the primary 4 months of the season. His whole of 17 barrels in that span nearly matches the 20 he hit over the primary two-thirds of 2023.

So has Turner restored his profession again into the pre-2023 trajectory? Not fairly, however issues definitely look so much sunnier than final month:

The again of the contract nonetheless seems disagreeable, but it surely was at all times going to, just because we’re speaking a 30-year-old shortstop’s projected efficiency in his early 40s. However the entrance finish of the deal seems so much nicer, and let’s be trustworthy, that’s why he’s in Philadelphia, not due to what he would theoretically do in 2033. He entered the yr with one of the best five-year projection of any shortstop in baseball; by August, that was right down to seventh. In a single month, he’s climbed again as much as third, behind Lindor and Wander Franco, whose future seems very murky because of some severe investigations in his dwelling nation. Turner has even bought his Corridor of Fame trajectory largely again on monitor; ZiPS appears him ending round 2,300 hits and 300 homers with 60 WAR, and whereas that’s a tricky case to make based mostly on historical past, these numbers put him proper round Alan Trammell, who ought to completely be within the Corridor.

For many of the summer season, Turner was having a season that everybody wished to neglect. If he continues to hit like this and the Phillies go deep within the playoffs, no one will bear in mind his midseason struggles in 2023.