Trea Turner is a good shortstop again, thanks to his own humility and Bobby Dickerson’s coaching

Trailing by one run with two out in the ninth, the Dodgers’ Tommy Edman turned on a 99 mph sinker from Phillies reliever José Alvarado. It came off the bat at 106.6 mph, straight at Trea Turner’s backhand.

Last year, infield coach Bobby Dickerson said, he would have thought, “Oh, s—.”

This year, not so much.

Turner switched his hips, crouched, sent his glove toward the ball, and cleanly picked the bounce out of the air. He switched his hips back, squared his shoulders, made a strong overhand throw, and nailed the speedy Edman by half a step.

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Game over, Phillies win, take the series over the defending world champs, two games to one. It was another big win and another big step in the reconstruction of Trea Turner.

When Dave Dombrowski constructed the Phillies’ roster, with players like Kyle Schwarber, Nick Castellanos, and Turner, he knew he was sacrificing defense for offense.

“We just want our players to make the routine plays,” Dombrowski says.

Turner’s play looked routine, and it should have been routine for an 11-year veteran with three All-Star appearances, a World Series ring, and a $300 million contract. However, since he arrived in Philadelphia, Turner routinely has turned routine plays into breath-held adventures for his teammates, fans, and coaches.

Turner was a top-10 defensive shortstop as a younger man, and he’s usually been right about average, but his fielding metrics compared with other shortstops declined since he joined the Phillies in 2023. According to Baseball Savant, his fielding run value dropped from zero in 2022, which was about average, to minus-3 in 2023, which was sixth-worst among everyday shortstops, and minus-2 in 2024, which was fourth-worst. (The metric measures a player’s defensive performance on a run-based scale.)

The numbers added up if you’d watched him play. The most glaring decline was predictable.

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Turner’s 31, and going into the hole usually diminishes with shortstops around the age of 30. However, technically sound shortstops can compensate with anticipation and mechanics. The problem with Turner was he always relied on his athleticism and arm strength to compensate for imperfect technique.

More alarmingly, after 2022, he started having problems charging balls. He went from being above average when coming in on ground balls to being far below average, an even greater indicator of a flawed setup and bad habits. It was hard to watch.

He committed a career-high 23 errors in 2023. In 2024, he already had three errors after nine games, and he finished with 17, but he should have again been charged with at least 23; official scorers were generous to him.

After six games in the field this season, entering Tuesday night’s game in Atlanta, he had no errors. He hasn’t even needed shady scorekeepers to protect him.

How has it happened?

If Dickerson’s philosophy can be condensed, it might go something like this: Stay low through receipt, or stay “in your legs,” and attack the ball with both your feet and your glove. Don’t let it play you.

As soon as Turner arrived in 2023, Dickerson knew the shortstop’s fielding was flawed. He tried to help, but what a coach says doesn’t matter when the player isn’t hearing him.

“It was on me,” Turner admitted. “I don’t think I kind of was syncing up or doing the things that he asked.”

Turner worked hard but not smart. It wasn’t quantity. It was quality.

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“It’s not just taking grounders,” Dickerson said. “It’s being open-minded when I, or someone who’s hitting ground balls to him, says, ‘Hey, you let that hop play you.’ Then, being diligent in making the correction.”

So this year at spring training, for about 30 minutes every morning for six straight weeks, Turner worked with Dickerson on the half-field. Dickerson treated Turner like a $300,000 rookie, not a $300 million star. If Turner got lazy on a play, Dickerson liberally showered him with colorful baseball vulgarities delivered with Dickerson’s Mississippi twang.

It made for fine entertainment.

Dickerson has worked wonders with far lesser Phillies.

The Phillies used to think they’d have to move Alec Bohm to first base one day, but he’s become an above-average third baseman in the last two seasons. Bryson Stott was a shortstop all his life before the Phillies moved him to second base, where he has made just nine errors in three seasons. Dickerson and first base coach Paco Figueroa, who also works with the outfielders, turned Castellanos from the worst everyday defender in baseball into an entirely competent right fielder.

If you’re a kid trying to hold on to a job, like Bohm, or a kid willing to play anywhere to make the team, like Stott, or a guy trying to change his reputation, like Castellanos, it’s easier to embrace change. It’s harder for stars to change.

Besides, Turner never really had to think about playing good defense before. It came naturally.

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“My only goal ever, playing shortstop, was just to complete as many plays as I could. That kind of started in college. I didn’t care how I did it, what it looked like,” Turner said. “Look, I understand I’ve made my errors, you know, in the last few seasons.”

He’d had enough.

“When I got with Bobby this spring, it was, like, ‘All right, I can go to another level. I can get better. How do I do it?’ ” Turner said.

First, humility.

Now, consistency.

It’s easy to focus on changes for the first nine games of a season, but can Turner stay focused for the next 153 and beyond?

Dickerson has been no more lenient with Turner since the season began. When Turner takes ground balls before games, Dickerson points out every subtle miscue. There just aren’t as many miscues.

“His moves have improved,” Dickerson said. “The consistent moves that he’s making will allow him to make exceptional plays.”

An exceptional play isn’t necessarily a highlight play. Often, exceptional plays are routine plays gone awry that are saved by good fundamentals.

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“There was a play [Friday], it looked like he slipped moving forward to a backhand. Then, it took a bad hop,” Dickerson said. “Last year, two years ago, he would have let that hop play him. Instead, he made a move to the hop, saw the hop. Recognized the hop. Made changes to the hop.”

And made the play.

On Sunday evening, sipping an iced amber beverage in his leggings at his locker, Turner recalled the play from Friday with the pride of an angler who’d landed a trophy fish.

“It was kind of a two-hop chopper, and I was going to catch the third hop,” Turner said. “And I did catch it. But when I made my move, I slipped. But I was making the right move and slipped a little bit on the catch. But I had enough momentum to get there, and then I just had to regain my balance for the throw. But making the right move — that was the key.”

It began with the footwork, and the discipline, and the aggressiveness, and commitment.

And the humility.

“As long as that continues,” Dickerson said, “he’ll make the plays.”