Phillies put Trea Turner on notice. Get better at shortstop or find another position

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Trea Turner has seven years left on his $300 million contract with the Phillies.

He has through about spring training to get his defense together and remain Philadelphia’s starting shortstop.

A year after Dave Dombrowski put Bryce Harper on blast, the top Phillies executive turned his biting criticism toward Turner.

The 33-year-old Turner had perhaps the worst season of his career — he hit .242 with a .675 OPS with a league-worst 21 errors at shortstop — and Dombrowski warned on Thursday that a position change could be on deck if Turner fails to regain his form as even an average fielding shortstop.

No manufactured standing ovation could save Turner from the outfield.

“From a defensive perspective we were very clear. He knows he has to be better at shortstop,” said Dombrowski, the longtime president of baseball operations. “I told him it’s really mandatory that it’s like that.”

Turner and Dombrowski met Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park to discuss the shortstop’s fate — well, shortstop for now — and the changes Turner needed to make in the field and at the plate if he wanted to remain at his favorite position and near the top of the order in 2027.

“He’s determined to show us he can play it,” Dombrowski said. “I said, you have to show it. You cannot play shortstop like you did defensively in ’26 going to ’27.”

Turner went 1 for 10 in the playoffs when the Phillies lost in three games to the Atlanta Braves in the NL Wild Card Series.

To paraphrase Dombrowski, Turner is no longer elite.

The Phillies’ core starters of Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola have made five straight playoff appearances — including a loss to the Houston Astros in the 2022 World Series — and averaged 91 wins per year during that stretch.

Turner joined the Phillies in 2023.

The Phillies just haven’t won the World Series over that span.

Turner took the blame for the Phillies’ latest postseason failure and conceded his season-long struggles played a factor in another early October exit for the franchise.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Turner said after Game 3. “Kind of go over everything and just figure out as much as I can. Find answers. See what I did bad. But I feel like this year is the biggest question mark for me offensively in a long time. I’ve got to figure that out. So I definitely have a lot of work to do there.”

The Phillies have three potential question marks in the outfield.

Harper has been the regular first baseman and will return to first base next season after he played the final two months in right field when the Phillies acquired three-time batting champion Luis Arraez. Arraez is a free agent and unlikely to return.

Brandon Marsh actually started for the NL All-Star team before a second-half collapse that included a .183 batting average (155th out of 156 qualified hitters) and a .490 OPS (156th). His on-base percentage after July 1 was an anemic .250 and he’s destined to revert to a platoon player.

Justin Crawford had a solid rookie season, and Derek Hill and Bryan De La Cruz weren’t horrible but aren’t everyday players in Philadelphia.

Turner might end up in the outfield whether he wants to play there or not.

“He prefers the infield,” Dombrowski said. “He’s a good athlete. I think he can adjust appropriately and we’ll see what happens.”

The Phillies clearly expect Turner to regain the form he had in 2025, when he led the NL in hitting and made only eight errors.

“It’s up to him to show us that he can do it,” Dombrowski said. “We’ll see what happens. But we’ll have fallback opportunities, and some of them may come from the young players that we have.”

Options. The Phillies have them in the infield, especially if they let slugging third baseman Alec Bohm walk in free agency.

Bryson Stott, a stout second baseman who played at third base following the Phillies’ trade deadline defensive shuffle, could move to shortstop.

Dombrowski did not hold back from praising top minor league infield prospects Aidan Miller and Bryan Rincon. Miller is cleared to play and ready to compete for a spot on the roster after he missed most of 2026 with a back injury. He is the Phillies’ No. 2 and MLB’s No. 59 overall prospect.

Turner has $190 million left on his contract and a no-trade clause which makes him all but immovable in the trade market. With a work stoppage almost certain in December, Turner should have many months ahead to work on defensive drills. Work on his swing. Work on any small detail he thinks will help him regain his All-Star form in 2027.

Or else.

“The reason we signed him in the beginning compared to some others, not only was he a good player, but we thought he had the ability to continue to be a good player for a long time here,” Dombrowski said.

Is that time over?

___

See AP’s full MLB coverage here