Dodgers: Justin Turner Named One Of The “Best Old Guy” Free Agents
Coming off a strong 111-game-winning season (with the exception of the short-lived postseason run), the Dodgers have a lot to be proud of but also some clear holes to fill for next season, especially with so many players being elected as free agents this offseason.
When the Dodgers decided not to pick up their team option on Justin Turner, it left many fans worried about the future of RedTurn2.
Justin Turner, who is now 38 years old, has spent the past 10 years of his 16-year career with the Dodgers so it’s understandable why fans are heartbroken to see him possibly leaving Los Angeles.
Although, the Dodgers have made it clear they aren’t letting him go all that easy and are still working out a different possibility of him returning in Dodger blue.
And rightly so. MLB writer, Will Leitch builds a case for why Justin Turner shouldn’t be counted out just yet:
“The Dodgers didn’t pick up their team option on Turner, but the newly minted Roberto Clemente Award winner might still return to the team that turned his career around when he left Queens. It would feel strange, honestly, to see him play somewhere else, but it’s possible. A new team would get a guy who got off to a slow start in 2022 but rebounded to put up numbers similar to his career marks.”
The stats don’t lie either. In the early spring months, the two-time All-Star struggled to produce on the offensive side hitting .197 in April, .240 in May, and .236 in June. But then, July was when things finally started to turn around for the MLB veteran.
In July he posted a .400 AVG and .545 SLG followed by .314 AVG and .443 SLG in August, and finally ending the regular season with a .342 AVG and .605 SLG for the month of September.
He finished out the season with a .278 AVG, 13 homers, 81 RBI, and a .788 OPS which is not that far off his career regular season stats. Across 4522 at-bats, he posts a .289 AVG with a .832 OPS so what seemed like a scary beginning to his season ended up not so bad overall which is something that might help him as a free agent.
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