FanPost

Justin Turner....The Mets next SS?

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via media.nj.com

Since Terry Collins has been the Mets manager, he has had a bit of a love affair with IF Justin Turner. In his 3 seasons with the Mets, everyone's favorite pie-throwing Ginger has hit .265 with 8 Hrs and 86 RBIs while playing mostly 2B and splitting his remaining time at 1B, 3B and even SS.

While Turner is not exactly your prototypical 1B or even good enough offensively to hold a job as a 2B his batting line seems like an interesting for the SS position.

Turner has made 21 starts at SS for the club on strictly emergency basis and in his 188.2 innings played there he has only committed 1 error. Now that's hardly the most effective way to value a player's defensive prowess plus its a Small Sample Size. However using Fangraphs UZR ratings we can also see that of all of the balls hit in Turner's direction, He was able to make plays on 79.6% including 11 plays made outside the SS zone.

Again SSS, but all in all his career UZR as a SS is a surprisingly average +0.6 UZR.

Offensively Turner's numbers also fit surprisingly well as a SS. Amongst the 17 qualified statistical leaders for the SS position the top offensive player, Troy Tulowitzki, hit .312. 5th was Ian Desmond with a .280 Avg, 10th was Zack Cozart with a .254/.284/.381 triple slash line. Justin Turner's average career 162 game numbers would rank 9th in the MLB in AVG, 7th in OBP, and 10th in OPS.

Now this goes without saying that no one is calling for Turner to be the Opening Day SS.....However do not be surprised if we hear his name around the position a lot more this Spring Training and for him to get about 30-40 games there next season.

Just a thought.

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