Justin Time!

Some quick thoughts on the Jays' signing of Justin Turner, which is either a good start or a terrible finish to their offseason work.

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Image stolen from an excellent tweet by @MikeBeauvais

Ross Atkins has really taken a lot of the smoke out of the many obviously they’ll do something responses in my long-overdue mail bag here on Tuesday morning, as he’s actually signed a player to hit baseballs for the 2024 Toronto Blue Jays! And while I only have myself to blame for the upcoming mail bag rewrites, I can at least still blame Ross for signing a $13 million deal (plus $1.5 million in potential bonuses) with a guy who is already pulling in $6.7 million from his buyout on last year’s contract with the Red Sox, and $2 million in deferred money from his previous deal with the Dodgers.

It’s Justin Turner, everybody! And, jokes and counting-Uncle-Ted’s-money aside, he’s a decent enough fit for this Blue Jays lineup. Maybe even more than that, if they do the sensible thing and continue to add.

Turner was primarily a DH/1B for the Red Sox in 2023, though he spent many years prior to that as the Dodgers' third baseman—including their World Series-winning season in 2020 (during which he somewhat notoriously broke COVID protocols to celebrate the championship with his teammates shortly after testing positive for the virus, which... I assume we're mostly just going to forget about from here on out). He turned 39 in November, is unmistakably in decline, and probably shouldn't see the field a whole lot in the coming season. But he was healthy enough to get into 146 games last year, and managed to slug 23 home runs while slashing .276/.345/.455.

The Jays could have used some of that, if you recall.

Now, a bunch of Turner’s production was Fenway-aided; his raw slash line dipped to .257/.343/.440 on the road. His wRC+ only amounted to 114 overall, which is better than Matt Chapman produced (110) but hardly makes him a replacement for Brandon Belt (138). He also was fairly pedestrian against same-sided pitching in 2023 (105 wRC+ against RHP, 142 versus lefties), though in his previous two seasons he was actually better against right-handers (both 129) than lefties (120 and 109 respectively).

In other words, he's a useful player who would tilt toward quite good if he goes back to hitting RHP and could still field third base the way he did a few years ago. Or, perhaps, if his decline in 2023 was a bit exaggerated. (His wRC+ hovered in the 125-130 range from 2019 to 2022, with the exception of a small sample blip of 138 in 2020. If he could get back into that territory it would be a good thing!)

I don't hate the move! And it doesn't hurt that both Yankees fans and Red Sox fans don’t seem especially happy about it.

Thing is, I’d like it a whole lot more if I could shake the sense that the Jays probably won’t punt on third base defence by sticking him there more than they absolutely have to. If Turner is basically the DH, and the Jays are now out on Chapman, Belt, Cody Bellinger, Jorge Soler, J.D. Martinez, and Joey Votto, that’s much, much, much less good.

I mean, that still probably sets them up to be projected as a playoff team—and since it’s all a crapshoot from there, maybe that’s fine—but actually getting there means banking a lot on the Orioles falling back to earth, the Rays not simply Rays-ing their way to 95 wins like they always seem to, the Mariners’ improvements not sticking, the World Series champion Rangers (ugh) not doing better, and the Red Sox not having one of those dumb seasons where they’re supposed to be kinda bad but just keep winning.

In other words, they still need to do more.

Looking at the roster, the Jays certainly have room to do that. Turner has already been added to their page at RosterResource, and both Spencer Horwitz and Santiago Espinal remain listed on the projected bench. There should be no issue finding a spot on the big league roster for someone else.

Financially, however, it’s a different question. With Turner added, RosterResource estimates the Jays' luxury tax (CBT) payroll to be $251 million, which is $14 million above the 2024 threshold of $237 million. Last year their CBT payroll was $246 million, which was $13 million over the $233 million threshold. We know from the Ohtani (who?) thing that ownership can be swayed by the right business case, but already we're again in uncharted waters here.

Obviously Rogers should blow past all of our previous expectations and keep spending. Matt Chapman now looks—and maybe always did—like a particularly excellent fit. He'd move the Schneider/Biggio platoon thing to second base, make IKF more of the utility guy he ought to be, limit Turner's reps at third, and give him more of a cushion (via Horwitz) if he continues to be merely average against right-handed pitching. That would give the Jays a pretty well-rounded roster, even if it may feel a little too close to running back 2023. They should do it.

But will they? Will they even look to add less-perfect types like Votto (who would supplant Horwitz), or Soler (who is at least as much of a liability in the outfield as Turner is at third), or any of the others?

I'll take whichever additional bat they can land and happily let them figure the rest out later. But Chapman, specifically, would be really good. And nothing, specifically, would be incredibly risky for a front office that half the fan base has already turned on for the second or third time. DO NOT RECOMMEND!

On the other hand…

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