Should the Brewers Turn to Justin Turner to Resuscitate Their Offseason?

Age is interpreted a little differently in the world of sports. Since the lifetime of a player’s career is relatively short, the age of 30 serves as a common threshold for considering a player old—archaic, even anachronistic, one might say. Chris Paul, a point guard who is currently 39 years old, is now being lovingly referred to as “unc” by his teammates in San Antonio. 

Baseball is a little different. Because there's less contact and the game emphasizes its skills instead of sheer athleticism, players can stick around for a little longer. Satchel Paige was 46 years old when he earned his eighth and final All-Star nod in 1953. David Ortiz was 40 years old and in the last year of his career, when he led Major League Baseball in doubles (48), slugging percentage (.620), and OPS (1.021). There’s still a lot of value in older players, especially when it comes to mentoring a group of younger, less experienced faces.

Justin Turner crossed the 40-year mark last November, but hasn’t shown any major signs of slowing down just yet. In fact, if there’s a single word to describe Turner, it’s 'consistent'. Since 2013, he has never had an OPS+ under 100 for a full season. He started last year’s campaign with the Blue Jays and found himself with the Mariners at the trade deadline, where he became an integral part of an otherwise lackluster offense. Over 190 plate appearances with Seattle, he posted a 128 OPS+. 

Time waits for no man, and he is no exception. As he has grown older, his athleticism has steadily waned as his Statcast numbers clearly illustrate. He’s in the bottom decile for baserunning value, bat speed, and sprint speed. His average exit velocity and hard-hit rates are better, but still not great, landing him in the bottom quartile of qualified hitters. At this point, most would hang up the cleats and immediately place an order for podcasting equipment. Instead, Turner has changed his approach to compensate for his weaknesses.

He makes excellent swing decisions and has top-tier bat-to-ball skills, whiffing on just 17% of his swings last season. He also kept his strikeout rate below 20%, while maintaining nearly an 11% walk rate, making him a tougher out than one might expect. His spray chart also shows another, more nuanced way that he has changed things up to stay relevant in a young man’s game. 

He’s a master at optimizing launch angles, continuing to hover around the 17° mark that he’s averaged for his whole big-league career. This gives him just enough lift to hit singles to all fields without the extra juice. One might also notice that, while the singles are evenly distributed across the board, his extra-base hits are far more skewed to one side. This is because, in order to get doubles and homers without simply adding more bat speed, he relies on pulling the ball more frequently. He's akin to Isaac Paredes or the Brewers’ very own Rhys Hoskins. 

This is more of a commentary on a flaw of xwOBA than a complete analysis of the extra value this provides, but FanGraphs has an outstanding article about how pulled balls consistently outperform their xwOBA, specifically at lower exit velocities, which is exactly what Turner has. This is partially due to the fact that xwOBA doesn't really factor in horizontal launch angle—which is a can of worms in and of itself, but hey, we're having a good time so let's get back to praising Justin Turner. His pull rate of 38.7% in 2024 was the highest of any season in his career. This figure has steadily increased over the past few years, so it seems to be an intentional adjustment to his hitting style rather than a simple statistical anomaly. 

Okay, so we’ve established that he’s baseball’s ageless warrior. That's great and all, but where does he actually fit on the roster? He has been spending the lion’s share of his time as a designated hitter, a position that’s already quite crowded in Milwaukee, but he had his fair share of reps at first base, as well. Of course, the Brewers already have a first baseman who is getting paid $18 million in 2025, so maybe he wouldn’t fit there either. Alas, there is naught but one more spot for him to go: third base.

Yes, the last time it was clearly his primary position was 2021. Yes, if you look at his Savant page his arm strength is in the fifth percentile, which is a problem when one is required to throw across the diamond. Yes, his fielding range is probably quite poor, and he’s probably not as limber as Joey Ortiz or Sal Frelick. But there are reasons to have faith. 

First of all, I’m skeptical about the arm strength thing, since it only tracks attempts and as a designated hitter/first baseman, how often was he really having to throw with all his might? Second, if Turner has proven anything, it’s that age is just a number. Donovan Solano, who is younger but not by much, spent the most time at third base with the Padres last year and did well enough to sign a new one-year deal with the Mariners. Josh Donaldson was 37 years old when he retired as a Brewer and he was still pretty decent in the hot corner. Turner himself played a whole 33 innings of third base in 2024, so what’s 500-700 more innings of work at the spot? I mean, just check out the sheer athleticism he deploys in this clip to put out noted speedster Giancarlo Stanton:

In all seriousness, he did make some athletic plays in the field while at first base, so he’s still got a least a little leather left in his glove:

In a total worst-case scenario, he can form a sort of DH/first base rotation with Hoskins, the way that Jake Bauers did last year. Could he really be any more "meh" than Bauers was last year? And look, we dismissed the idea of him being a regular at DH or first, but he could certainly be a complementary player in either or both of those roles. Even at DH, Christian Yelich might need days off here and there. Ditto for Hoskins. And Turner would be injury insurance for several players, both directly and indirectly.

Milwaukee has a little more to spend this offseason and Justin Turner would comfortably fit into that budget on a one-year deal. It won’t completely alter the future of the franchise or give the city their long-awaited World Series win (on its own, anyway), but it would make them one step closer to competing and give the fans at least something to look forward to this winter.