Can the Phillies fix shortstop Trea Turner? They’re trying. So is he.
“Can he be a better version of himself? I think so," says Phillies infield coach Bobby Dickerson. "If he’s the best version of himself, now, that’s quality shortstop.”
CLEARWATER, Fla. — Thirty-five fans peered through the black bars on the fence above the half-field at BayCare Ballpark about three hours before that day’s Phillies game, fascinated at what they saw. Star shortstop Trea Turner was doing his pregame work, and things were going smoothly ... until Bobby Dickerson slapped the fourth grounder in a set of five to Turner’s backhand.
It hit Turner‘s glove and ricocheted as if the leather was metal.
The fans groaned.
“Clean that [crap] up, Trea!” Dickerson hollered.
Turner nodded. He picked the next one clean.
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This was Sunday morning, the middle of Turner’s daily reclamation routine. The Phillies realize that their $300 million shortstop has played dime-store defense the last two seasons, regularly botching routine plays and seldom making great ones. So, they instituted a program to smooth out his rougher edges.
The Phillies already are no better than average on defense. They’re built to win with big bats and stud starters. They’ve won the World Series just twice, and each time they had a wizard at shortstop: Larry Bowa in 1980, Jimmy Rollins in 2008. If they want to win it all again, they need competence at short.
This falls to Dickerson, the Phillies’ peerless infield coach. He turned Bryson Stott, a minor-league shortstop, into a Gold Glove-caliber second baseman. He turned Alec Bohm from a minus-6 third baseman in 2022 to a plus-4 in 2024, if you trust Baseball Savant’s defensive metrics.
Both of those players were young, impressionable, and fighting for future earnings. They had lots of incentive to listen.
Turner, on the other hand, is a three-time All Star in his 11th season, and he’s in the third season of an 11-year deal. A top-tier hitter, he has always relied on his athleticism — his balance, his reflexes, his speed and quickness — to compensate for imperfect mechanics and footwork, but time erodes all things and lays our imperfections bare.
Turner will be 32 in June. Since his arrival, his defense, which was about average or slightly above as a younger player, has dipped precipitously. He was the fifth-worst everyday shortstop in 2023 and the sixth-worst in 2024. He led the majors with 23 errors in 2023. That number dipped to 17 in 2024, but that was only due to generous official scoring.
Can Dickerson really teach this old dog new tricks?
“In most cases, I would say, probably not,” said team president Dave Dombrowski. “I think in Trea Turner’s case is, yes, I do. I think he can.”
Spoken like a man on the hook for $245 million. Why does Dombrowski think that Turner can be the exception to his rule at baseball’s most demanding defensive position?
“The difference is a couple things. One is, he’s still extremely athletic. He has not lost any athleticism. He’s one of the fastest guys. The quick-twitch muscles — that hasn’t changed,” Dombrowski said. “The second thing is ... I think there’s a very open-mindedness to making a change.”
Turner sure seems open-minded.
“It was just ... everything. Just fielding in general. It’s just, like, thought process, and physical, and everything,” he said last week. “I’ve made some progress.”
Dickerson explained the depth of the instruction, from taking better angles to the ball, to cleaning up lazy footwork, to glove presentation, to transferring the ball from glove to hand, to finding the proper rhythm on each batted ball. Aside from an occasional lapse in concentration, practice has gone well.
But fielding fungoes on the half-field and gloving soft grounders off the bats of minor-leaguers in spring training games isn’t the same as scooping shots from a basher like Josh Bell, whom Turner will see when the Phillies open the season at Washington on Thursday. He realizes this.
“You can talk about it, but let’s see what the numbers say in a couple months and see how it’s going,” Turner said. “Look, I feel good. I feel like I’ve made some progress.”
The pressure doesn’t help, either, especially when you’re flailing at the plate.
After a three-week honeymoon in 2023, Turner fell into an 86-game slump in which he hit .217, then after hitting .459 in the first 10 playoff games went hitless in the last three. He struggled after late July in 2024, with a .676 OPS, then had just three hits in the four-game NLDS loss to the Mets.
“On defense, you’re not ever supposed to go in a slump. Not ever supposed to lose your rhythm. But it happens,” Dickerson said. “Maybe he wasn’t swinging the bat like he wanted to.”
Was his offense affecting his defense?
“I mean, we all are trying to separate those. I definitely do,” Turner said.
Turner has shown that he has trouble separating himself from the outside noise. In an effort to bust Turner’s slump in 2023, when he was hitting .235 with a .657 OPS, a radio show producer organized a choreographed standing ovation when the shortstop came up to bat.
It worked. Turner hit .337 with a 1.057 OPS the rest of the season, and he played slick defense. He can be very, very good.
“Trea, in my opinion, gets unfairly beat down at times,” Dickerson said. “This spring he’s looked really good at shortstop. He’s made routine plays look routine. He’s made a couple of ‘plus’ plays.”
What’s the ceiling, then?
“You hear, ‘You won’t win the World Series with him at shortstop.’ Well, he won a World Series playing shortstop,” Dickerson said.
To be fair, that was way back in 2019, with the Nationals, and Turner had a very good year in the field. But, point taken: Turner doesn’t need to be Rollins or Bowa.
“We’re not remaking a shortstop. We don’t need to,” Dickerson said. “Can he be a better version of himself? I think so. If he’s the best version of himself, now, that’s a quality shortstop.”