Shock: Trea Turner Is Nonetheless Actually Good at Baseball

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

During the most popular months of the summer time, one of the vital widespread questions I received was some variant of “is Trea Turner broken?” My traditional reply was that he’d most likely be superb, even when expectations needed to be lowered a bit, nevertheless it 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), nevertheless it was nonetheless a major 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.

Back then, I re-ran Turner’s long-term projections to see what sort of bounceback ZiPS was anticipating. While the pc noticed a reasonably 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.

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

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

How has he performed 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 proportion 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 increased, to 39%. While he’s nonetheless remained aggressive over the past month, along with his swing charge hanging regular at 52%, the sorts of pitches he’s swung as has modified; his out-of-zone swings dropped by 5 proportion factors, and his in-zone swing elevated by the identical margin. This form of enchancment is more durable than it sounds, as decreasing out-of-zone swings as a rule ends in fewer zone swings attributable to 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 charge over the past month is effectively above his 40% charge over the primary 4 months of the season. His complete of 17 barrels in that span virtually 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 actually look so much sunnier than final month:

The again of the contract nonetheless appears to be like disagreeable, nevertheless it was all the time going to, just because we’re speaking a 30-year-old shortstop’s projected efficiency in his early 40s. But the entrance finish of the deal appears to be like so much nicer, and let’s be sincere, that’s why he’s in Philadelphia, not due to what he would theoretically do in 2033. He entered the yr with the most effective 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 appears to be like very murky on account of some severe investigations in his house nation. Turner has even received his Hall of Fame trajectory largely again on observe; ZiPS appears him ending round 2,300 hits and 300 homers with 60 WAR, and whereas that’s a troublesome case to make based mostly on historical past, these numbers put him proper round Alan Trammell, who ought to completely be within the Hall.

For a lot of the summer time, Turner was having a season that everybody needed 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.