Entering His Age-40 Season, Justin Turner Signs on With the Cubs

For the third consecutive offseason, Justin Turner has signed to play for a new team. This time, he is heading to the north side of Chicago, after he and the Cubs agreed to a one-year deal worth $6 million earlier this week. Turner, who turned 40 in November, will likely split time at DH and 1B. The reason to add Turner at this stage in his career is straight forward: He can still hit at an above league average clip.

Considering Turner is entering his 17th major league season, you likely already know a lot about his game. His whiff and strikeout rates have stayed in the upper quartile even as he has aged, he doesn’t chase much, and has a great feel for spraying the ball to all fields. It’s the exact group of traits that a hitter without much explosiveness needs to survive this many years. Here is a quick reminder of his performance over the last handful of years to put into perspective where he is at right now:

There is no doubt his contact quality has dipped. That’s likely a function of his bottom decile bat speed. But along with that has come improved whiff rates. This compensation represents a new version of how Turner has been successful with his current physical attributes. It’s a benefit to any team to plug in this type of hitter, especially because he is productive and essentially platoon neutral.

To be frank, though, I don’t think a full on, comprehensive analysis of Turner’s offensive game is completely needed at this point. We’ve seen what he can do and have a good idea what type of hitter he is now. Instead, I want to use this time to highlight what I think is the most impressive part of Turner’s game, the part that makes me enthusiastic to watch him in the twilight of his career: His ability to hit sinkers.

Over the last four seasons, Turner has accumulated more run value against sinkers than any other pitch. The way he can manipulate his barrel to square up sinkers from either lefties or righties has always been an art form to me. In general, his feel for where his barrel is in space has carried him throughout his career. And against sinkers, his mastery is on full display.

This might feel random, but bear with me. I’ve watched a lot of Clay Holmes over the last four seasons. He may have the nastiest sinker in the entire sport from a movement perspective. He throws it over 96 mph with the most vertical drop in the game. It’s a nightmare for any hitter, and even worse for a righty. To match the plane of the pitch, a right-handed batter has to deviate from his typical swing path. Inherently, the horizontal direction of a righty’s barrel works toward left field. To change that, the hitter needs to have a more handsy, less rotationally focused swing. That is exactly why using the Holmes-Turner matchup is a perfect way to illustrate this particular skill.

Turner’s placement of his hands in his swing combined with where he turns his barrel over allow him to match the plane of a Holmes-type sinker, which has a very sharp horizontal entry into the zone and a ton of vertical drop. Logically, it makes sense that Turner would be a great Holmes neutralizer. And of course, we have a perfect example of Turner doing exactly that, while he was with the Red Sox in 2023:

You have to focus on Turner’s hands throughout this swing to really appreciate what he is doing. His patented hand placement leads to a completely perpendicular barrel before the downswing. Then, as his swing begins, he turns the barrel over while his hands are relatively far from his body, almost with a completely straight top arm. That movement in particular sets him up to get his barrel far out in front of the plate to match the spot of the sinker before it gets too deep on him. Here is a slowed version to help:

Fantastic. And obviously this isn’t the only example we have of Turner scorching sinkers. Here is another one, showing him from behind, against the funky Tyler Rogers from last season while he was with the Blue Jays:

This pitch is located low and inside – the exact spot where you would expect Rogers to dominate a right-handed hitter. But Turner is different! Getting his barrel under a sinker like this is like breathing to him.

I can go on forever watching these swings from Turner, but I’ll leave you with two more:

Against a backdoor sinker like this one from Clarke Schmidt, it is wild that Turner is able to get as much lift as he does. In the last clip, which shows a swing against Shawn Armstrong, Turner hangs in as long as he possible before shooting his barrel to a pitch on the edge. Like I said earlier, it’s an art form.

In what could be the final season of Turner’s very successful career, I’ll continue to appreciate this skill as much as I can. I’m confident he’ll be a positive addition to the Cubs’ lineup, but at a minimum, he’ll provide them with a sinker neutralizer to plug in at any moment.