Trea Turner, the lightning-fast shortstop who has burgeoned into a perennial MVP candidate, has a deal to join the Philadelphia Phillies, according to ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
Turner is reportedly set to sign an 11-year, $300 million deal with the team. The contract includes a full no-trade clause.
The move ensures Turner will pair with Bryce Harper in Philadelphia for the foreseeable future. Both Harper and Turner signed similar deals with the Phillies, fully committing to the franchise for the long term. Turner’s 11-year term and $300 million total both handily exceeded expectations. FanGraphs’ crowdsourced projections pegged Turner for a seven-year, $210 million deal. However, the longer term actually creates a lower average annual value — $27.27 million per year — which will help general manager Dave Dombrowski’s big-spending Phillies in calculating their annual competitive balance tax.
Turner, who will turn 30 in June, won the 2019 World Series with the Washington Nationals and cemented himself as a superstar with a power uptick that began in 2020. His all-around abilities gained more recognition after a 2021 trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers, as he seamlessly joined and then replaced Corey Seager.
Turner reached free agency as one of the winter’s quartet of potential franchise shortstops, and there’s a strong case to be made that he’s the best of them.
Since 2020, he leads all major-league shortstops in FanGraphs WAR. He has 61 homers and 71 steals in that span, making him one of only three players with at least 50 of both, alongside José Ramírez and Ronald Acuña Jr. He won the 2021 batting title with a .328 average and has twice led the National League in hits. Thanks to excellent bat control — and again, the speed — Turner routinely runs one of baseball’s best BABIPs, making it difficult to keep him off the bases.
Turner has largely put injury woes early in his career behind him. He played all 162 games in 2018 and has missed a total of 16 games the past three seasons.
The biggest qualm about Turner is how his speed-based production will age. He could face a steeper decline when he begins to lose a step and his many doubles and triples shrink into singles and doubles. Serviceable but less sure-handed at shortstop than some of his rivals, he might be asked to move to second base (or possibly center field) in the near future.
Turner’s contract will inspire comparisons to Seager’s 10-year, $325 million deal with the Rangers…