High Hopes: A Phillies Podcast - Can the Phillies Fix Trea Turner? | WIP Daily

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Joe Giglio takes a deep dive into Trea Turner's struggles, how he got here and what the Phillies should do with him moving forward. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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a five-star review, really would appreciate that. And, of course, sharing it with everyone you know. All right, today we've got to have the conversation. It's time. And I know we've reached base a couple times last night, but I think it's time to have the Trey Turner conversation here about his season so far, worry level, and really what's going on here with Trey Turner because the Phillies spent $300 million on Trey Turner and he has not looked anything like a $300 million

player so far. I want to get into reasons for optimism on Trey Turner and reasons to be worried about Trey Turner both now and into the future. But I want to just start with a disclaimer, PSA. If I see one more time it's his Castellanos year, I'm going to lose my mind. We shouldn't be okay with that. Nick Castellanos stunk last year. He was terrible the entire season. And he's a big part of the reason why the Phillies couldn't upend the Astros and win the World Series. If he was better, if he was the more normal version of himself, the Phillies certainly have a better chance to win the World Series. We shouldn't just accept Trey Turner's going to have an awful season. First of himself, that Philly certainly has a better chance to win the World Series. We shouldn't just accept Trey Turner's going to have an awful season.

First of all, he's a better player than Castellanos, so he's supposed to be above this. But that being said, I can't do that. Well, it's his Castellanos year, so we're just going to expect this? Bryce Harper didn't have a Castellanos year. Bryce Harper had, I'd say, a down month and a half, and then he got really rolling, great August, and he ended his first year as a Philly, which certainly representative stats for the player he is. He wasn't bad his first year by any means. Cassianos was bad.

I can't do it. I can't do a full year of Trey Turner hitting like Cassianos did last year. But let's dive into Trey Turner. All right, let's start with, and I'll kind of go back and forth on this because I want to hit every angle there is on Trey Turner and his season so far. The reason for optimism when you look at Trey Turner, what he's done so far, and what he might be able to accomplish, I don't think athletically he's lost it. I don't. I mean, his sprint speed is still 99 percentile.

He still can run. I don't see physical decline in Trey Turner, which is the first thing you kind of look for. Is he banked up? Is there a physical decline? I don't see that. So that gives you a good feeling that it's not a physical thing. This is more in his head, more of a mental thing. So just from last year to this year type of thing, I don't see physical decline. The other thing that I think is a reason for real optimism is that Trey Turner historically, historically in his career, is a slow starter. If you go look at Trey Turner in his career and what he's done month by month over the course of a season. First of all, first half, he has a career 799 OPS.

Second half, 853. So he's a second half player anyway. And if you go month by month, his OPS in April is 451st career. I assume he's 793. His OPS, I was looking at slugging, his OPS for May is actually 760. He's actually worse in May than he is in April, historically. Then you look at his numbers and they jump pretty significantly the rest of the season. June 839, July 826, August 874, and September 878. So he gets, I mean, his best months are August, September. The best of Trey Turner has been in August and September. He has been a below average offensive player in April and May historically. So this is not, now this is probably the worst we've ever seen Trey Turner,

the most extended streak of Trey Turner. So that's obvious, and that is certainly worrisome. But I'd say the good news is this is who he is. I mean, Trey Turner typically is a slow starter to seasons. So when you couple the fact that he's coming here, trying to live up to the contract, some pressure. I know he hit well in the World Baseball Classic, but it did, in a way, change his routine. He didn't get to go to a new spring training site and settle in for six weeks. He was there, it was new, and then he's running to the World Baseball Classic, hitting really well there.

But then all of a sudden, he's out of clear water, and he comes back for the last week. He was on with us on the midday show. I thought he seemed ready. I thought he seemed calm, composed, poised, all those kind of things. So that should give you, I think, a sense of he's going to be okay when it's all said and done. I mean, it's a weird spot. First year, a lot of changes.

April and May is never his best anyway. So I do think there's something to be said there about Trey Turner. Okay, so now that we got that out of the way and the realistic expectation, and look, he's a guy I've compared to Paul Molitor. I mean, I think very highly of Trey Turner as a player. That all being said, let's talk about the negatives and what we're seeing so far. Every piece of data you look at, every metric is bad. I mean, they are bad. Expected batting, I respect it. Slugging, exit velocity, it's poor. I mean, he's swinging at

bad pitches, not making contact, and striking out a lot. And I think defensively, he's only been okay. I don't think he's been bad. His arm is fine. I wouldn't say he has a great arm. He's still very quick out there. Just let's focus on his offense.

The defense, over time, will have a better sampling of how he is aging as a shortstop, but just offensively. Everything so far this year points to, uh-oh, it's not good. Number one is the chase rate. He's just swinging at bad pitches. I mean, you saw it

first at-bat, second at-bat on Monday night against Arizona. He's just swinging at bad pitches. That is, you saw it first at bat, second at bat on Monday night against Arizona. He's just swinging at bad pitches. That is the number one problem with Trey Turner right now. He seems like he's going up there guessing, and he doesn't really have an idea of what he's doing at the plate. It's like he wants to be aggressive, but then he's overaggressive. He wants to be a little calmer, and then he's letting strikes go.

It just feels like everything is kind of in his head a little bit here. Offensively, at the plate, his swing decisions are flat out terrible. And that, I think, is just watch him game to game. If he swings his strikes, I have no doubt Trey Turner will be successful. I just have no doubt he will be successful if he swings his strikes. That is the number one key. It's always the key with any of these hitters, but I think specifically for a guy like Trey Turner, who doesn't go up there looking to take pitches. He goes up there to hit the baseball. I mean, he's not a guy that's going up there to walk a lot. I mean, that's just the truth. He's a guy for his career, his swing percentage

is 47.3%. He swings about half the time a pitch is thrown to him uh that number is rising in recent years but that's that's the truth he swings a lot and now typically in his career he makes a lot of contact he you know he makes contact about 78 percent of the time when swinging this year it's down to 67 so he's just swinging and missing an incredible amount of times he's never swung and missed this much in his career. You go back through his career, even when he was a rookie, 83%, 77, 78, 81, 78, 81, 79, 74, 67. So if he chooses to swing at better pitches, I think Trey Turner's going to start hitting the ball with some authority and he's going to be fine. Now, so I kind of isolated what's going on here at trade turn. He's obviously making bad swing decisions. He's swinging a bad pitch out of the strike zone.

If there is a worry, and I'm not even just talking here about 2023 specifically, the trend line of his career, I'm big on trend lines with baseball players, especially as they get to around age 30. You know, are they getting better? Are they the kind of player that just keeps getting better and better and better? Are they plateauing? Or are they getting worse? And it doesn't, you know, sometimes worse doesn't have to stand out to you in a meaningful way.

It's just kind of subtly. You know, year by year, there's a little bit of erosion on a player in terms of, you know, whatever kind of part of the player we're talking about. But with Trey Turner, and I mentioned this last week, we talked about should we worry, not worried about certain Phillies, panic or patience. And I've preached patience with Trey Turner. As much as I'm starting to my eyebrows are raised at what's going on here,

I do think there's a couple things that everyone missed. I mean, everyone missed this. I'm not talking about us as fans. I'm talking about baseball. Because the Phillies were not lambasted for giving this guy an 11-year, $300 million contract. In fact, other teams wanted to do this. The Padres may have offered more.

I mean, teams wanted to throw money at this guy left and right. There is a trend line with Trey Turner, both in the obvious, his statistics, and then the less obvious, why those statistics are happening over the last few seasons that I can't unsee. It's one of those things when you see it, you can't unsee it. So let's go to the obvious. The obvious, which is his raw numbers. If you go back starting in 2020, which was the best year he's had in the major leagues. I know it was a truncated season.

It was the pandemic year. But statistically, it's his best year. He hit.335 with a.162 adjusted OPS. That is 62% above average. Or you want to just use the raw number, 162 adjusted OPS. Okay. That is 62% above average, or you want to just use the wrong number, 982 OPS. The next year,

2021, probably his best overall full season, but a little bit less than the year before the pandemic season. He had 328, led the league in batting average, 319 total bases, led major league, led the big leagues.

Okay. 145 OPS plus and a 9-11 OPS. So his OPS dropped from 982 to 9-11. Still outrageously great. You go to last year, and this is the year that I think is just almost a forgotten data point in Trey Turner and what he is and where he's going. And this is, again, this is what the Phillies signed him off of last year. Last season, he hit.322, which is still a nice batting average, very nice batting average. His, excuse me, he hit.298 last year. Good batting average, not superior. His OPS dropped

to.809. Guys, his OPS dropped 102 points from 2021 to 2022. His batting average dropped 30 points. And now, obviously, this year it's all down, 256 batting average, 693 OPS. He's below average offensively in almost every category. But that drop from his peak, if you even want to combine 2020, 2021, because one was a short year, that two-year stretch is age 27, 28 season,

which very well may be looked at when it's also known as the peak of his career, which means it comes down off that. Over those two years, he played in 207 games, hit.330 with a.150 OPS plus. He was 50% above the average player, hit a.931 OPS over that 207-game span. If you look at Trey Turner since that span,

he's played in almost the same amount of games, 206. So his peak of 207 games between 2020, 2021, he has dipped. I mean, so much, it's remarkable. His OPS now with the Dodgers last year and then the Phillies so far this year is 782. This is a remarkable dip as the players reach his age 30 season. This is concerning to me because a lot of times players peak at 27, 28, and then it's the down, right? It's that trend line. Are you going up? Are you plateauing? Are you going down?

Trey Turner's going down from his best. Now, can he rise back up? Oh, the Phillies better. Hope it's 11-year contract. But he's going down from his best, and there's no other way to say it. Now, why? Why is he going down? This is what I find to be interesting and a little bit concerning. So there's a stat called O swing percentage. I'm not trying to inundate you with nonsense here, but it just means how often do you swing a pitch outside the strike zone? It's a very simple concept. Just use some funny words to get you there. How often do you swing the bad pitches? Pitches that are not strikes. If you go back to that peak we're talking about, the 2020-2021 best of Trey Turner, he swung at pitches outside the strike zone 29% of the time, then 30% of the time. Maybe it's a little high, but not that big of a normal, you know, maybe it's a little high, but not that big of a deal.

Last year, 36% of the time he swung at a bad pitch. This year, 41% of the time. 41% of balls he's swinging at. Pitches that are not strikes. So, you know, it's gone up from when he was young, it was about 25%, 26%. Then he kind of tried to expand the zone. I think he was trying to be a little more aggressive, and obviously it paid off for him. 2020-2021, about 30% of the time he swung at a pitch that was a bad pitch. We are now up to 36% last year, 41% this year.

Guys, that's it. If he doesn't stop swinging at bad pitches, and I wonder if he's guessing because he feels his bat slowing down a little bit. I don't know. That's just my wonder if he's guessing up there because he's afraid he can't catch up to a fastball. But if he continues to guess, this is going to be a problem. I mean, it's going to be a major long-term problem.

And guys, the reason why you're going to hear everyone harping on the Trey Turner stuff is twofold. One, the Phillies need him, obviously, to play well. He's a major part of this team. And what they're going to do this year, he's a big part of it. But number two, he's here for 11 years. 11 years. The Phillies married this guy. They need him to be better.

So you kind of have all these issues going on here. I do think we've seen Trey Turner's best in the big leagues. Now, I'm not saying he can't be a very, very, very good Philly if he kind of levels out. And even if it's just what he was last year for the next three, four, five years. I think we would all take that at this point. But the trend line is obvious if you look at him from his best 200-game stretch to what the last 200 games have been. It's obvious. The other thing, and this is something Rob Thompson is going to have to think about, I think, pretty soon and hard and fast, is dropping him in the order.

I mean, if Trey Turner continues to hit like this, there's no reason he should be hitting one or two. There's just not. It's just based on reputation. Because right now, Bryson Stott. Right now, Bryce Harper. Right now, Kyle Schroeder, who's heating up, and we'll get to June here in a minute. Nick Castellanos, who's cooled down, but certainly has had a decent season.

JT Real Muto. They all, all five of those guys deserve to be higher in the order than Trey Turner just based on current production, the way they're hitting right now today. So this is something Rob Thompson's got to focus on. Look, I don't imagine this will be our last Trey Turner conversation, but I wanted to do this episode today to really kind of dive into what I'm noticing with Trey Turner, what's happened to Trey Turner, and where this is. I wouldn't give up yet on a player that's going to be here for a very long time. But my eyebrows are raised to what the Phillies actually signed,

the player he actually is. And every game now, just watch the swing decisions. That's the problem. He swings at bad pitches. If he swings at strikes, I still think there's enough power and contact ability and raw ability that he will produce. But if he's swinging at bad pitches, he's out. I ability that he will produce. But if he's swinging at bad pitches, he's out.

I mean, he's done. Like, he's got no chance to turn this around. That's the season. That's maybe the next 11 years. That's Trey Turner. Hopefully, this thing turns around. Maybe last night, the RBI hit. Big one to right field. The walk of the night.

Maybe, maybe it's the start of Trey getting hot, which he likely will and always seems to as we get to the summer months. Thank you for listening to WIP Daily. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. And, of course, YouTube, 94WIP. Watch the podcast there as well. Thank you for listening.