NATS WON’T CALL UP TURNER UNTIL AT LEAST JUNE?
What follows is a cautionary tale of what can happen when you roster minor leaguers. You could hit a home run or you could whiff and head back to the dugout in shame. Go big or go home is what they say I believe.
Trea Turner is one of the elite shortstop prospects in baseball. Through 11 games at Triple-A he’s hitting .357 with a .997 OPS and four steals and that effort has pushed his minor league career slash line to .324/.388/.459. Not much he can really do down on the farm to prove he’s ready for the big leagues.
The thought was that the only thing blocking Turner from the bigs was that his manager Dusty Baker doesn’t like youngster and two veterans that weren’t very good. Danny Espinosa has a .158/.283/.184 slash line this season. That’s simply horrific. At least they have veteran Stephen Drew to turn to. Well, sorta. The veteran still has a passable glove but is coming off a season in which he hit .201 with a .271 OBP though he did pop 17 big flies in 383 at-bats last season for the Yankees. Add it up and the Nats have two vets they could turn to if they wanted to leave Trea in the minors for some seasoning. Currently 10-3 and leading the NL East, the Nationals could also continue to go with the vets if they are winning, not wanting to rock the boat while at the same time allowing Turner to refine all aspects of his game including his glove which lags behind his bat as he’s already made two errors this season after committing 21 errors in 111 games.
So there’s all of that to deal with when it came to predicting Trea Turner’s appearance on the major league scene this season. It didn’t stop many from drafting Turner in mixed leagues, and it certainly hasn’t curtailed people wanting to add Turner to their bench in season to await his arrival. After all, how long can Espinosa and Drew hold him off?
It might be a long while.
The following is taken from an article by Mark Zuckerman of MASN. This is not an official proclamation by the team. It’s Mr. Zuckerman reading the financial data and laying out the obvious facts. Here they are.
1 – Teams often wait until late in April to ensure that they will control a player for seven seasons before he hits free agency (if the player comes up early in April team control only lasts for six seasons). The Nationals held down Bryce Harper in his rookie season until April 28th to ensure they controlled him for the extra season.
2 – Teams have to worry about Super 2 status. Super 2 status is a moving date that isn’t locked down until after the season. Here’s what Super 2 Status is, directly from MLB.com.
A player with three or more years of service, but less than six years, may file for salary arbitration. In addition, a player can be classified as a "Super Two" and be eligible for arbitration with less than three years of service. A player with at least two but less than three years of Major League service shall be eligible for salary arbitration if he has accumulated at least 86 days of service during the immediately preceding season and he ranks in the top 22 percent (increased from 17 percent in previous agreements) in total service in the class of Players who have at least two but less than three years of Major League service, however accumulated, but with at least 86 days of service accumulated during the immediately preceding season.
Practically speaking this means that players are often kept in the minors until about the second week of June to assure team control of a player for that extra season. Check out how the Nationals handled Stephen Strasburg in 2010. He wasn’t called up to the big leagues until June 8th during his rookie season.
3 – Turner was on the Nationals roster for 45 games in 2015. This is key. He’s already nearly at the limit before the Nats lose that extra year of control.
What does all of this means?
Here are the highlights, or the lowlights if you’ve rostered Turner.
If the Nationals want to make sure they can control Turner through the 2022 season they won’t be calling him up until the second week of June. If they call him up before then they lose contract control of him after the 2021 season.
If the Nationals want to push Turner’s arbitration to 2020, instead of 2019, then he won’t be called up to the big leagues until… wait for it… July.
So that’s the deal.
I warn about the pitfalls of minor leaguers and rookies every season. I try to boil my concerns down to two things when I discuss it – skills and opportunity. Turner has the skills, at least offensively, to contribute in the big leagues right now. Note I said offensively. His glove is still a work in progress, and after years of Ian Desmond kicking balls all around the infield from the shortstop position you have to think the Nationals are looking for some stability in that aspect of the game. Oh, offensively who is Turner? The minor league numbers are great, but I would honestly say that once called up you should be thinking Elvis Andrus (see his Player Profile). If that doesn’t excite you why are you so interested in Turner?
As for the opportunity… I’ve laid out all the concerns there. Whether it’s veterans in the big leagues, or the contract concerns off it, the short-term takeaway would seem to be that Turner could be at least six weeks away, perhaps more, unless an injury strikes in the big leagues.
DFS DIAMONDS
*The following list of players are guys that Ray recommends as daily plays. He will try to avoid the obvious, so you will rarely see the best of the best listed
CATCHER: Molina is batting .444 at home this season. He’s had at least two hits in five of his last seven starts. Righties haven’t proved much of a bother as Molina has a .341/.372/.488 line against them this season. He faces Kyle Hendricks.
FIRST BASE: You can read about how much Greinke has struggled against lefties below (see Span). When a righty has been on the hill this season Brandon Belt has hit .314 with a .429 OBP and .543 SLG. That’s a .971 OPS folks (lefties have a .828 OPS against Zack G).
SECOND BASE: Ian Kinsler has two hits and a run each of the last two games. He’s working on a 7-game hitting streak and has a .940 OPS on the road this season. He’s also 5-for-7 against Ian Kennedy.
THIRD BASE: Matt Carpenter has a homer, and six hits, in 10 at-bats against Kyle Hendricks. He’s also posted a 1.000 OPS at home this season and look at his line against righties last season (.292/.385/.541).
SHORTSTOP: Elvis Andrus is only batting .226 against Doug Fister, but there are some things to like. (1) He’s hitting .389 at home this season. (2) He’s batting .441 at night this season. (3) Over his last nine games he’s produced 13 hits, six runs and six RBI.
OUTFIELD: Denard Span has a .293/.353/.408 slash line against righties in his career. He’s scored six runs in his last eight games for the Giants and Zack Greinke has really struggled badly against lefties on the young season (.333/.378/.486). Span is also batting .303 over 33 at-bats against Greinke.
OUTFIELD: Brett Gardner has quietly posted a .438 OBP and .873 OPS this season. Over his last four games he’s produced eight hits and on the young season he has a 1.142 OPS at home. He faces Kendall Graveman.
OUTFIELD: Last season versus righties Curtis Granderson was killer with a .280/.388/.504 slash line with 24 homers. He faces homer prone Jeremy Hellickson in a game in Philadelphia.
Ray Flowers can be heard Monday through Friday, 7 PM EDT and Friday on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 6 PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).