Time to go “Fire Joe Morgan”-style on one of our old friends
Sports is a wonderful thing because it allows for debate. It allows for two people to argue about mundane topics that have no bearing on how our own day to day lives are going to be run. The best kind of sports debate involves actual good ideas, ones worth arguing about because there is logic in both sides if you are willing to listen with an open mind.
Then, there’s this.
Over the weekend, you may have seen one of the local baseball scribes write about the need, the necessity if you will, for the Phillies to move Trea Turner to left field to better accommodate Edmundo Sosa at shortstop. It’s one of the ideas bandied about among fans looking at ways, any possible way, to upgrade positions while keeping someone like Sosa in the lineup. However…
Well, let’s go “Fire Joe Morgan”-style on this piece. It deserves it.
Trea Turner is a bad shortstop. Demonstrably bad. Analytically bad. Empirically bad. Edmundo Sosa is an excellent shortstop. Entering this weekend’s series in Baltimore, he has 95th-percentile range, a strong arm, and, unlike Turner, uncanny instincts. He can hit a bit, too.
When making broad, sweeping statements of this nature, it’s best to back up your statements with actual data so that the reader can nod along accordingly as you so desire them to.
I will now wait for that data to appear…
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still waiting…
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Sosa has done everything to earn the Phillies’ starting shortstop job. Turner has done everything to lose it.
still waiting…
Turner was the second-worst defensive shortstop in the major leagues in 2023, according to Baseball Savant. He was, at times, the absolute worst shortstop in the major leagues in 2022. He spent this spring working on his defensive shortcomings, and he improved over 2023; he now merely is well below average, matching his 2022 performance level.
Frankly, he hasn’t been very good for the last five years.
Ah, here we go.
The writer makes the claim that “Turner was the second worst shortstop in the major leagues in 2023, according to Baseball Savant.”
That is false.
Now, while Turner was not good, the author is making him out to be some kind of abomination unworthy of possessing a glove. Choose your Baseball Savant metric for evaluation, but he was not the worst in either of them. Through Sunday’s game, Outs Above Average (OAA) has him at -5, not good, but the worst was Amed Rosario at -14. Fielding Run Value (FRV) has Turner at -3, again not good, but also not the worst in the category (Rosario, -13).
Oh, and he’s not the second worst in either category. Not that difficult a piece of information to look up and be accurate on.
Now, let’s go to the whole five year thing. Again, he’s not been great (-8 OAA), but that number is thrown off by his bad season in 2023. You can’t just ignore that season, but it also has to be taken into account that fielding metrics fluctuate with players. One year a player could be good, the next he’s bottom tier. “Hasn’t been very good” is not a correct statement.
Look, I like Turner. I think he’s a valuable player. But Turner should not be playing shortstop. Not on a team with one of the best pitching staffs in baseball. Not on a team with championship aspirations.
Is there something else he needs to do? Improve his defense? You could quibble if he wasn’t, if he was merely satisfied with being where he was last year and saying it was a blip on the radar, but there were stories of his desire to improve his defense in spring training and, surprise! The data backs it up that he has improved.
When Turner returns to the Phillies lineup, he should not be at shortstop. He should be in left field. Sosa, heretofore a bench player and utility man but always an elite defensive shortstop, should be playing shortstop every day, if not more.
Is Edmundo Sosa a better defensive shortstop than Trea Turner? Yes. Everything you’d want to use to make that assertion is there in black and white.
Except for the whole thing about swinging a bat.
Which is conveniently ignored throughout this entire piece.
Sosa replaced Turner when Turner was sidelined May 3 with a strained left hamstring. In his 30 games he has proven to be the best shortstop the Phillies have had since Jimmy Rollins, who is the best shortstop the Phillies ever had.
Sound crazy?
Yes.
Turner can play the outfield. He played 45 games in center field in 2016.
We want to put a player in a position he has never played before because he played something similar for 1⁄3 of a season eight years ago? Alright.
Turner has speed. He remains one of the 20 fastest men in baseball, according to Baseball Savant. Turner does not have a very strong arm, but then, left field is where you put your weak-armed outfielders.
Boy do I have some bad news for you, buddy.
43 players have made at least 50 throws from the shortstop position this season. Oneil Cruz leads them all with a preposterous 95.1 miles per hour average throw, which deserves its own post.
Coming in ranked at 24 is Trea Turner with an average 83.8 miles per hour throw.
Now go ahead and click on that link above. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see….
…that’s right, Sosa is at 32 with an average throw of 81.0 miles per hour.
Again, if you’re going to make sweeping statements like this, USE THE DATA THAT IS RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOU!
Turner has mainly played shortstop his whole life, so being on the left side of the outfield would be an easier adjustment than putting him in right field, or center. Infielders move to the outfield all the time. At least, good ones do.
They also stay in the infield, but that’s beside the point.
Brewers shortstop Robin Yount won a second AL MVP award in 1989 after his move to center. Chipper Jones won his 1999 NL MVP as a third baseman but played 365 (about 15%) of his games in the outfield. Mookie Betts won his 2018 MVP and his six Gold Gloves as an outfielder, but he was drafted as a middle infielder and has played nearly 200 big-league games at second or short.
Want to take a guess who is actually among the bottom of the barrel in terms of fielding among shortstops this season by FRV? I’ll give you a hint: he’s mentioned here and is still active.
Maybe it’s unfair to assume that Turner has the athletic ability of these three Hall of Famers (Betts will be a first-ballot inductee; he has long been baseball’s best position player). But if your argument is that he’s not a good enough athlete to play left field, understand that you always put your best athlete at shortstop … which is all the more reason to keep Turner off the 6.
…
If there was no Sosa, this would matter less. The Phillies were always willing to live with a net-minus on the left side; when they signed him to an 11-year, $300 million deal in 2022, the Phillies knew Turner had the hands and range of Mike Schmidt’s statue. [Sosa’s] hitting .284 with an .861 OPS. This is no fluke. Since landing in Philly via trade in 2022, Sosa is hitting .267 with a .782 OPS.
Want to take a guess as to who is hitting better since landing in Philadelphia via free agency in 2023? There’s a reason that Turner’s .791 OPS in Philadelphia (.852 this season) is ignored here. It’s because it doesn’t help carry the argument the writer is trying to make.
And he can flat-out pick it — he ranks seventh among shortstops in fielding run value at plus-4. Turner is 23rd, at minus-1. This decision is such a no-brainer, even I can see its logic.
Again, no one here is going to argue that Turner is the lesser shortstop defensively. But the writer is arguing that based on defense alone, Sosa is more deserving of the starting job while Turner is to be banished to left field.
Should we take a look at how the other Phillies roster decision that was based on a good glove, but inferior offense, player is going?
What about the rest of the lineup?
Well, the Phillies have already discussed replacing their left field platoon of Brandon Marsh and Cristian Pache/Whit Merrifield … with Sosa. Who has never played in the outfield.
“You know what’s a bad idea? Putting a guy in left field who has never played the outfield. You know what’s a great idea! Putting a guy in left field who has never played the position!”
Someone help me with the logic here…
Sosa, 28, has been an in-game replacement four times in six big-league years (he missed 2020 with COVID-19). He played outfield once in the minors. Neither Turner not Sosa nor would be as good in left field as Marsh or Pache, who are superb. Either could surely do it; after all, Pat Burrell and Greg Luzinski did it.
But why would you weaken yourself at shortstop, which is a much more important position?
Again, for the people in the back: no one is going to argue that Sosa isn’t a good shortstop defensively! He is good! Do you know how many teams would like to have that problem, to have two players capable of manning the six competently? Do you think the Dodgers would rather have Sosa at shortstop and allow them to Mookie Betts over to a more important position of need, say second base or one of the outfield positions? Of course they would.
What they wouldn’t do is move a permanent shortstop to the outfield if he had never played there before, especially without a spring training to help with the transition.
Smart teams don’t do this move midseason.
It won’t happen.
Not soon, anyway.
Not the way baseball defers to veteran royalty, and Turner is firmly entrenched among the Phillies’ clubhouse bros.
Hmmm.
Starting to think I see an agenda here.
Turner also is in the second season of his deal. He turns 31 on June 30, so the argument that age is catching up with him falls flat. Derek Jeter won all five of his Gold Gloves after he turned 30.
Jeter also won his Gold Gloves in an age where the voting was done without the use of (even still flawed) infield metrics. But again, choosing to ignore that shows you the cherry picking that goes on sometimes.
Finally, Turner likes playing shortstop. And, as we saw, pre-ovation, in 2023, he’s sort of fragile, so the Phillies aren’t likely to risk upsetting him.
Ah, now we finally get to it.
“Fragile.”
His word, not mine. The appearance of an agenda against Turner is finally crawling out from under the carpet. Were there not some kind of agenda happening here, this wouldn’t even be mentioned, yet it is. I don’t believe that the writer has anything against Turner. The turnaround Turner experienced last season was quiet impressive, but it could have been just a plain old hot streak.
Or it could have been a player realizing that he’s one of the fifteen best players in the game.
But “fragile”? Why is this being brought up at all? If we’re to base the move of Turner to left field in favor of Sosa solely on the information at hand, this side of the topic wouldn’t even brought into the discussion.
My solution probably won’t immediately gain traction … at least, not until Turner again leads his position in errors, as he did last season, with 23. He probably won’t lead the majors in E’s this season, since he’s missed so many games — but then, he already has four errors. And he was on pace for 20 errors when he got hurt.
And he is among the worst shortstops in baseball.
No, he’s definitely, and factually, not.
The crux of this article is that Edmundo Sosa should be the starting shortstop because his defense is better than Trea Turner. He hits enough that the overall net gain is worth moving Turner out of position to left field.
Let’s consider the parts that have been left out.
On May 24, Sosa was hitting .338/.427/.615. Since that date, he has hit .215/.239/.385. One could argue that it is just a cold streak, something that happens all the time in baseball. This is true. But the evidence suggests that this is a theme with Sosa. Last season, when given extended run in the lineup due to injury by starting 35 out of 40 games from late April to mid June, Sosa hit .211/.224/.309.
When given to regular plate appearances. Sosa’s weaknesses are exposed.
There is nothing wrong with that. Sosa is a valuable member of the Phillies. He fills a role with the team that many have failed at before. Any team in the majors would be happy to have him, but the Phillies do and his strengths are accentuated by a manager and coaching staff that has proven adept at putting their role players in situations where they can succeed.
Supplanting Turner with Sosa is just nonsensical. The writing tries to make arguments for this position with reasons that do not hold up. The Phillies would be wise to ignore it.