Milwaukee Brewers Linked to Justin Turner as “Mystery Team”

What do you know? Tuesday was a busy day — rumor wise — for the Milwaukee Brewers. Over the course of the day, they were reportedly linked to Marcus Semien, who has since signed with Toronto, Eddie Rosario, and most notably, Justin Turner.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, there’s no way the Brewers sign Turner. And you’re probably right. But from a pure baseball perspective this is a move that would make a lot of sense. Milwaukee needs a third baseman and Turner is a very good one, especially with the bat.

Turner has been with the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2014 and during that span, he has slashed .302/.382/.503 for an .886 OPS and an OPS+ of 139.

In 2017 he was an All-Star, batting .322 and posting a .945 OPS. Additionally, from 2016 to 2018, Turner finished in the top-15 of NL MVP voting each year.

More recently in the shortened 2020 season, Turner recorded a slash line of .307/.400/.460 with an OPS+ of 135 and four home runs.

Defensively, Turner has been up and down by Baseball Savant’s Outs Above Average metric, posting -4 in 2018. He then finished at +4 outs above average in 2019, and then -2 this past year.

However, defense isn’t why the Brewers would be signing Turner and his up and down years shouldn’t scare any team away. Not to mention that as we’ve seen in the past, GM David Stearns is willing to sacrifice defense for some added pop in the lineup.

As I said, as a pure baseball move this is a great fit for the Milwaukee Brewers. But the two parties would also have to make things work financially — duh — which is where we hit a bump in the road.

Reportedly, Turner is seeking a four year deal, which is something that I just cannot imagine the Brewers handing out to the soon to be 36 year old—even if he does carry a pretty good bat. MLB Trade Rumors is projecting that Turner lands a two year contract worth $24 million. That’s better, but likely still too steep for the Crew.

Stearns is always checking around, and maybe that’s all this was. It’s been a slow offseason, to say the least, so perhaps Stearns was checking in to see if there was any possibility of landing Turner on a one year deal with a higher AAV. Similarly to what he did in 2019 when he signed Mike Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal late in the offseason.

For now we will wait and see how this plays out, and it’s worth noting that Stearns has certainly surprised us before—the aforementioned Moustakas and Grandal signings are perfect examples. With that said, I understand the skepticism among Milwaukee Brewers fans with this news.