Major League Baseball

Nats' Trea Turner demanding consideration as the best shortstop in baseball

Published May. 20, 2021 9:00 a.m. ET

By Jordan Shusterman
FOX Sports MLB Analyst

Am I the only one seeing this?

That’s how I’ve felt lately whenever another Trea Turner highlight has come across my timeline and prompted me to pull up his stats, only to be reminded that he has been easily one of the best players in baseball since the start of the 2020 season.

Here’s a fact: Trea Turner is one of the fastest players in baseball. And as stolen bases continue to evaporate from the game, Turner shows no signs of slowing down.

His 143 steals since the start of the 2017 season are the most in MLB by a comfortable margin, and he has reached that tally with an 86.4% success rate, fourth-best in that span, behind only those of Byron Buxton, Christian Yelich and some fellow named Mike, all of whom have barely half as many steals as Turner.

Here’s another fact: Since the start of the 2020 season, Turner is slugging .581. That’s one point better than his superstar teammate, Juan Soto, over that stretch and fourth in all of baseball, behind only Jose Ramirez, Ronald Acuña Jr. and that same fellow named Mike.

One more fact: Turner plays shortstop. You know, arguably the most important position on the diamond.

It’s not like people don’t know who Turner is. He’s a former first-round pick who was the leadoff hitter on a team that recently won the World Series. He has been on people’s televisions plenty. But he has never been the guy, not even in his days at North Carolina State, and that has seemingly allowed the facts of Turner’s greatness to just wash over us, as if it’s normal to have a lightning-fast shortstop slugging nearly .600.

That’s not normal!

The Pittsburgh Pirates were on to something back in 2011, when they drafted Turner in the 20th round out of Park Vista High School in Lake Worth, Florida, coincidentally about a half-hour drive from the West Palm Beach complex where Turner now reports to spring training every February. Pittsburgh was enamored with Turner’s talent at that time, but there was almost no amount of money that would have lured him away from his commitment to NC State.

Turner didn’t disappoint in his three years in Raleigh, hitting a ridiculous .342/.435/.531 in 173 games and swiping 113 bags along the way. He spent two summers playing for USA Baseball’s Collegiate National Team and seemed primed to go in the top 10 heading into his junior spring, as did his Wolfpack teammate, left-hander Carlos Rodón.

But despite boasting two first-rounders, NC State severely underperformed in 2014 and didn’t even make the postseason, taking Turner out of the national spotlight after another solid season. The Padres ultimately selected him 13th overall, making him the fourth college hitter selected, after Kyle Schwarber, Michael Conforto and Kennesaw State catcher Max Pentecost (who never made the big leagues).

What happened next changed baseball forever.

OK, that’s a little dramatic, but did you know they had to change the rules because of Trea Turner?

When the Padres, Rays and Nationals agreed to a three-way blockbuster involving Wil Myers and Steven Souza Jr. in December 2014, San Diego agreed to send Turner to Washington as part of it. One problem: At the time, you weren’t allowed to trade players until at least a year after they had joined the organization. Turner, drafted six months prior, could not officially be named in the trade.

But there are always loopholes! The Nationals agreed to acquire Turner as a player to be named later, which sounds normal, except unlike most PTBNLs, who are officially named within a month or two, Turner wasn’t allowed to be named until the following June. That meant Turner had to report to spring training with San Diego in 2015 and play the first two months of the minor-league season knowing the team had traded him. Pretty weird!

This bizarre situation prompted MLB to change its rules, allowing players to be traded following the World Series of their draft year, rather than having to wait until the following summer. The Trea Turner Rule was born.

Teams have already taken advantage of this change on numerous occasions. The Mets have done so twice in recent years, shipping 2018 first-rounder Jarred Kelenic to Seattle in December of that year and 2020 second-rounder Isaiah Greene to Cleveland in the Francisco Lindor trade.

Turner finally made his Nationals organizational debut with Double-A Harrisburg on June 16, 2015, and he was in the big leagues a little more than two months later. He finished second in NL Rookie of the Year voting to Corey Seager in 2016 – all while playing center field to make room for Ian Desmond – and likely would have given Seager a run for his money had he played nearly as many games.

Turner moved back to his natural position in 2017 and began to establish himself as one of the premier shortstops in the National League. But at no point over the next three seasons – not even after winning a World Series – has Turner seemed to ascend into the Best Shortstop In Baseball discussion.

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Somewhat incredibly, Turner has never been an All-Star! He likely would have been in 2020 had there been an All-Star Game, but still, that's a decent indicator of how he has always been lurking a shade below the big names of Seager, Javier Baez, Trevor Story, Fernando Tatis Jr. and even Brandon Crawford in recent years.

Turner was perfectly solid in the 2019 postseason, but his two most memorable moments involved his winning free tacos for America and an absolutely absurd interference call. Even after he appeared on the game’s biggest stage, it wasn’t clear that Turner had another level to reach.

Well, it turns out that he did.

Since the beginning of the 2020 season, his 4.8 fWAR leads all shortstops and is second in all of baseball behind only Ramirez and Trout. Turner has helped keep the Nationals afloat during Soto’s choppy start to the 2021 season and continues to push the limits on what we thought possible for his offense.

Heading into 2021, there was much discussion about the great free-agent shortstop class of 2021: Lindor (who signed an extension), Seager, Story, Baez and Carlos Correa.

Trea Turner isn’t a free agent until after the 2022 season, but if he keeps this up, he might be the biggest prize of them all, especially considering that three other elite shortstops – Tatis, Xander Bogaerts and Tim Anderson – have already signed long-term extensions.

The Nationals surely want to keep Soto around for a long time as well, and that will cost them a hefty (deserved) sum. But you have to think that keeping Turner around is almost as much of a priority, and if not, he could be cashing in more than any of this winter’s free-agent shortstops 18 months from now.

He really is that good.

Jordan Shusterman is half of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball analyst for FOX Sports. He lives in Maryland but is a huge Seattle Mariners fan and loves watching the KBO, which means he doesn't get a lot of sleep. You can follow him on Twitter at @j_shusterman_.