Trea Turner’s struggles in his first season with the Phillies extend to his defense

For all the attention paid to Turner’s struggles at the plate, he is tied for the third-most errors among shortstops and is four runs below average in defensive runs saved.

Trea Turner was tied for the third-most errors (12) among shortstops entering play Tuesday.Read moreDavid Maialetti / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Published July 25, 2023, 1:29 p.m. ET

The numbers are right there, plastered up on the scoreboard for everyone to see.

Batting average: .247

On-base percentage: .300

Home runs: 10

On-base plus slugging: .687

Trea Turner can’t run from it, not that he’s trying. From an offensive standpoint, there’s no obscuring that his first season with the Phillies has fallen way short of the career standards — .302 average and .842 OPS entering this season — that netted him an 11-year, $300 million contract.

But defense isn’t always as easy to quantify, at least with mainstream metrics. There’s always the old-fashioned eye test, and well, it looked rather “brutal” — an adjective that Turner often chooses to describe his struggles — when he got handcuffed by a line drive in the fourth inning Monday night and booted a routine grounder in the fifth.

For all the attention that has been paid to Turner’s struggles at the plate, he was tied for the third-most errors (12) among shortstops entering play Tuesday and was four runs below average in defensive runs saved compared to nine runs above average through his first eight major league seasons.

“There’s some errors out there I can live with every step of the way, and then there’s some that I definitely think can be fixed,” Turner said. “It’s up and down, up and down. I could obviously be better. But in my mind, I’m starting to learn some things and feel pretty good, feel confident.”

Outwardly, Turner has remained upbeat about his disappointing Phillies debut. His frustration is evident, never more than when he argued a called third strike, tossed his helmet to the ground, and got ejected by plate umpire Will Little midway through Monday night’s game.

But unlike, say, Nick Castellanos last season, Turner has never appeared uncomfortable in Philadelphia. He insists he’s unfazed by frequent booing at Citizens Bank Park. And he’s unfailingly optimistic that he can turn around his season before it’s over, which would have a bigger impact on the Phillies’ chances of returning to the World Series than any trade they could make before next Tuesday’s deadline.

“Mentally,” Turner said, “I feel good. I feel like I’m in a good spot.”

At the plate, there are subtle signs. Turner’s nadir came on June 4, when an 0-for-5 in a victory at Washington left his batting line at .232/.276/.366 for a .642 OPS. In 41 games since then, he’s batting .270/.333/.419 (.753 OPS). It isn’t as scorching as the summer heat, but Turner has always been known more for his consistency than pronounced streaks. He has been steady enough for manager Rob Thomson to stick with him in the No. 2 spot in the order.

“You may not see that number on the scoreboard go up very quick,” Thomson said of Turner’s OPS, “but it’s going up.”

Defensively, the odds are against Turner staying at shortstop for the duration of his contract based on the relatively harsh aging curve at the position. But the Phillies also anticipated that he wouldn’t exhibit much regression until at least midway through the deal. They are holding fast, then, to the belief that Turner’s inconsistency in the field is nothing more than a blip.

Turner said he has worked with infield coach Bobby Dickerson on, among other things, improving his backhand. He was encouraged by a backhand play on Gunnar Henderson’s groundout early in Monday night’s game before the two errors.

“I felt smooth and felt like, ‘Man, I’m making strides there,’” Turner said. “But then you get a tough play and you make an error and that’s the difference, right?”

It’s also a snapshot of Turner’s season.

“I have high expectations for myself,” he said. “Just kind of be aggressive, be myself, and forget about all the stuff that’s happened earlier in the year. I never cared what it looks like the first seven, eight years of my career. It’s more of what I want to do.”

Turner excused himself for the first error, which came when he tried to backhand Anthony Santander’s chopper. He was bothered more by the second miscue. With a runner on first base, Jorge Mateo hit a grounder to Turner’s left. But rather than fielding it cleanly and flipping to second for the force out, Turner had it clank off his glove.

“I need to make that play,” he said.

After Turner’s ejection, slick-fielding Edmundo Sosa entered at shortstop and made a nice play on a hard grounder for the final out of the sixth inning. The crowd cheered. But Sosa also was unable to get down a bunt in the eighth inning before lining into a double play.

The point is, the Phillies lack an alternative to Turner simply playing better. Because even if president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski pulls a right-handed hitter and a back-end starter out of his hat at the trade deadline, those pieces will only complement a star-studded core of Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Kyle Schwarber, Castellanos, Zack Wheeler, Aaron Nola, and of course, Turner.

“He’s one of the best players in the league for a reason,” Harper said. “He’ll get going. We trust in him to be the best, and he’ll do that.”