Assuming that Trea Turner is in a Philadelphia Phillies uniform next spring, he’ll likely be wearing an outfielder’s glove.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reported on Friday that Turner moving from shortstop to center field feels like an “automatic” decision if he is not traded this offseason. The three-time All-Star is coming off a horrendous defensive season, and he topped 20 errors for the second time in four years.
The 33-year-old’s sudden decline continued in the Wild Card Round, as he managed only a single hit in 13 plate appearances. Rosenthal suggested that top prospect Aidan Miller, who missed most of the season with back trouble, would replace Turner at shortstop.
If so, then the pressure is on Miller in more ways than one. Not only would he be playing a keystone position for a team potentially nearing the end of its championship window, but he’ll need to succeed where other Phillies prospects haven’t of late.
Moving Trea Turner to center field doesn’t change the Philadelphia Phillies’ greater problems
Of the eight teams left in the postseason, most made it this far because of player development. Even the high-spending Yankees and Dodgers have seen several prospects — whether they were first-rounders or international signees — climb through the system and become viable MLB contributors.
But as Rosenthal noted, that hasn’t been the case in Philadelphia. Much of the team’s core, especially those who have joined the big league club following Dave Dombrowski’s 2020 hiring, were external additions. Turner and Kyle Schwarber arrived via free agency, while Brandon Marsh and Jhoan Duran came over in trades.
Of those drafted outside the first round since 2021, relievers Alex McFarlane and Orion Kerkering are the only ones to reach the majors while still in Philadelphia. Compare that to the Braves, who found eventual Rookie of the Year winner Drake Baldwin in the 2022 draft’s third round. And although the Yankees are still chasing their first title since 2009, they’ve watched a 2021 12th-round pick (Ben Rice) and a 2022 seventh-rounder (Cam Schlittler) blossom into All-Stars, and the latter is widely considered the AL Cy Young favorite.
“The current group has grown stagnant,” Rosenthal wrote of the Phillies. “Change is necessary, before things get worse.”
Change is far easier said than done, and Rosenthal acknowledged as much. Frankly, moving the two-time batting champion to the outfield is a band-aid fix at best, especially when he hasn’t played outside the infield since 2016. But DHing is obviously off the table so long as Kyle Schwarber is around, and there is no indication that Turner could move to second, as he did with the Dodgers in 2021.
And even if the Phillies found someone willing to take on the six years and roughly $164 million left on Turner’s contract, he has a full no-trade clause. He’s likely not going to fetch an especially notable haul, even from a fellow contender in win-now mode.
Dombrowski and the Phillies deserve credit for spending in an era where too many teams elect to stand pat, citing their market or budget size. But until or unless the end result is a championship, we’ll look back on Turner and the 2020s Phillies as a collective failure of wasted talent.
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