Who Is Justin Turner Proper Now?

You’re certainly accustomed to the trope of growing old sluggers who promote out for pull-side energy as a result of they will’t catch as much as the fastball like they used to. They should begin gearing as much as swing earlier, forcing them to guess what pitch is coming as a substitute of reacting to what they see. They hope that additional homers will offset the additional whiffs that come once they get fooled by slower stuff. The fascinating factor about this trope is that its technique is similar to the one which swept via all the baseball world roughly 10 years in the past. Justin Turner was a number one mild of the launch angle revolution, the motion that emphasised getting on aircraft early, attacking the ball out entrance, and pulling it within the air. Basically, that motion turned the final refuge of an growing old slugger into the mainstream method of hitting. At 39, Turner is now an growing old slugger himself, with a wRC+ that has fallen in every season since 2020. His swing is already optimized, and now that he’s largely relegated to designated hitter, his 106 wRC+ doesn’t fairly lower it.

A cursory take a look at his stats may inform you that Turner’s been unfortunate this season. In any case, he’s working his highest xwOBA since 2021 and his highest stroll charge since 2018. In the meantime, his BABIP is the bottom it’s been since 2011, and his wOBA is sort of 30 factors beneath his xwOBA. Unfortunate, proper? Right here’s the issue: Turner’s 30.6% hard-hit charge and 87.1-mph common exit velocity will not be simply profession lows, they’re miles beneath his profession averages of 39.6% and 89.8 mph. Turner’s popup charge has additionally ticked up. In case your high quality of contact will get drastically worse, luck most likely isn’t the factor that’s driving down your BABIP. However there’s nonetheless that pesky xwOBA to fret about. Why hasn’t it plummeted together with Turner’s barrel charge?

The reply is that Turner is working a 32.4% line drive charge, his highest since 2018. xwOBA loves line drives for a similar purpose that hitters love them: Line drives normally flip into hits. However Turner is coming by these line drives in a different way than he ever has earlier than. For the reason that starting of the Statcast period, batters have pulled their line drives round 37% of the time. Turner was proper round or barely beneath that league-average pull charge. However now that he’s hitting extra line drives, he’s additionally hitting them a lot softer and pulling them way more usually.

An analogous, although much less excessive destiny has befallen Turner’s fly balls.

This isn’t the way it’s speculated to work, and I do know that as a result of I realized it from Justin Turner.

Coming into the season, the priority was whether or not Turner might nonetheless catch as much as the fastball. His efficiency in opposition to them has been dropping for years now. To this point this season, it’s dropped only a hair extra, however a brand new drawback has emerged. Turner has additionally been horrible in opposition to breaking balls. He’s whiffing in opposition to them extra, popping them up at an alarming charge, and he has but to barrel up a single one. Take into account that coming into the season, in keeping with Statcast’s run values, Turner had been value 79 runs in opposition to breaking pitches since 2015. That was the third-highest complete in all of baseball, behind Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. This 12 months, he’s been value -5 runs in opposition to them.

The e book on Turner hasn’t modified. Pitchers are nonetheless making an attempt to counteract his catch-the-ball-in-front method by working him away. Nevertheless, whereas he used to search for that middle-away pitch, he’s now swinging at inside pitches way more usually. Beneath are warmth maps of his swing charges.

I watched a complete bunch of Turner’s pulled line drives from this season. They had been stuffed with balls hooked off the tip of the bat or muscled over the infield. In different phrases, he’s swinging at that inside pitch extra, and he’s making it work, however he’s not essentially squaring the ball up. Turner’s flare/burner charge is at 31.8%, a profession excessive and sixth highest amongst certified gamers. That’s an especially unstable stat; 4 of the 5 gamers forward of him are additionally working a career-high charge. It’s exhausting to think about that he’ll preserve that going for a complete season.

We now have bat monitoring knowledge that exhibits Turner with one of many slowest and shortest swings within the league in opposition to nearly each sort of pitch. Gamers with gradual swings have to offset their lack of energy by squaring the ball up usually. Whereas Turner can be working his highest contact charge in years, the Stacast knowledge is matching what I noticed once I watched his movie: He’s not squaring the ball up, and within the graph beneath, that places him precisely the place you don’t wish to be.

Someway, this energy hitter who reshaped baseball in his attack-the-ball-out-front picture is verging on Luis Arraez territory, however with out the strong contact that makes that profile work. We don’t have any method of figuring out how a lot slower or shorter Turner’s swing is now in comparison with latest years, however frequent sense tells us that it didn’t at all times appear like this. There’s merely no method that the method indicated within the graph above is how he turned himself into among the best hitters within the recreation. You don’t put up ISOs within the .200s for 4 years in a row with a compact, contact-oriented swing. That’s simply not the way it works.

There may be one indicator that Turner’s contact high quality is because of enhance. His contact charge on pitches outdoors the zone has skyrocketed to 78.7%, third highest amongst certified gamers. On the similar time, his contact charge on pitches contained in the zone has fallen. That’s the form of factor that tends to even out over time, however within the brief time period, it’s seemingly miserable Turner’s contact high quality. If we glance solely at Turner’s contact contained in the zone, his 89.1-mph common exit velocity, whereas nonetheless a profession low, is at the very least a bit nearer to his profession common of 91.4. When Turner’s contact charges begin to even out, he ought to begin hitting the ball more durable. Turner has additionally been on a sizzling streak for the final couple weeks. Since June 2, he’s raised his wRC+ from 87 to 106. Nevertheless, whereas his outcomes have improved, he’s really been hitting the ball even softer this month.

I’m actually undecided what to do with all this info. Possibly Turner actually is beginning his swing earlier like an growing old slugger, which leaves him too far in entrance of breaking pitches. Or perhaps he’s actively going for a extra contact-oriented method. Nevertheless, once I watch his movie, I don’t see something notably totally different.

His stance isn’t fairly as open because it was throughout his Dodgers heyday, and his leg kick is perhaps slightly greater, however he seems to be like he’s moving into his load and leg kick, then getting his foot down on roughly the identical schedule. Possibly that is what it seems to be like for Turner when the bat velocity is gone, however proper now, he actually does appear to be an outlier. In as we speak’s recreation, only a few gamers can discover lasting success by hitting flares over the infield. The protected guess is that one thing must give a technique or one other. Possibly he’s simply caught in between proper now, and his timing will come again. Both he’ll begin hitting the ball more durable, or his line drive charge will come again all the way down to earth and the anticipated stats will begin to line up extra carefully with the precise stats. For now, all I can say for sure is that Turner seems to be very totally different.