Trea Turner is all grown up, and developing into one of the best shortstops in baseball

The Washington Nationals are stumbling through this shortened baseball season. They enter play Wednesday having lost four straight. They have the second-worst record in the National League. They have to win two-thirds of their remaining games just to get to .500. If there were fans in the stands for next week’s homestand at Nationals Park, they would have more to boo than to cheer.

In situations like this — when the World Series title is behind and the pursuit of another this season is unrealistic — it makes sense to look around and determine what building blocks remain so that another run can be made, and soon. Juan Soto and his best-in-baseball on-base-plus-slugging percentage at age 21 is obvious, a star deserving of more national acclaim. Stephen Strasburg, on the shelf with an injury but signed through 2026, must be a core piece, as he was in earning World Series MVP honors last fall.

Other than that, who is more important than Turner? It’s now been five years since he first came to the majors. He played second base. He played center field. He was so baby-faced it was difficult then — and it’s difficult still — to see him as some sort of hardened veteran.

“That definitely seems like a long, long time ago,” he said.

Now, he is their shortstop — both of the present and the future. Think of it this way: Turner is the longest-tenured Nats’ position player. Yes, Michael A. Taylor arrived in the majors in 2014, a year before Turner. But Taylor can’t — and won’t — crack a starting outfield of Soto, Victor Robles and Adam Eaton.

So it’s time to acknowledge Turner as a potential star on the field — which we’ll get to — but an undeniable presence off it. Accurately grasping clubhouse dynamics is a challenge for reporters in normal times, even with daily pre- and postgame access. In covid-19 times, it’s nearly impossible, because the clubhouses are closed, access is via Zoom, and one-on-one conversations are almost nonexistent.

Still, in 2020, think of all Turner has seen. His debut was in 2015, when Matt Williams was still the manager and the Nats imploded. His rookie season was 2016, when Dusty Baker was at the helm and they won the division. He watched Jayson Werth leave after 2017, Bryce Harper leave after 2018, Anthony Rendon leave after 2019, and Ryan Zimmerman opt out of this coronavirus-shortened season this summer. He has standing in the room because of his abilities. But he has standing in the room because of his tenure, too.

“I think I am to that point where I can say things, but I also don’t necessarily think that’s who I am,” Turner said during a phone conversation Tuesday from Philadelphia, where the Nats are in the midst of a four-game series. “J-Dub (Werth) was pretty quiet until he needed to say something, and then he would definitely voice his opinion and tell people what needed to be said. I learned a little bit from him. Watching Tony do his thing — Rendon — he was our leader last year, and I don’t know if he ever talked to us once. Zim would talk a little bit.

“For me, I think it’s more about playing every day, going out there and battling, and letting my game talk more so than me. If I’m going to lead, that’s probably more how I’d do it.”

Given how he’s playing currently, that’s not a bad approach. Turner’s torrid four-game stretch — 15 hits in 20 at-bats with a homer and four doubles — ended Tuesday, when he went 0 for 3 with a hard-fought walk against Phillies ace Aaron Nola. It was a blast to watch even if it wasn’t even remotely sustainable.

But a stretch like that, when all of Turner’s abilities are on display — speed, power, contact, consistency — makes you wonder if he’s developing into the player he will be going forward. Through Tuesday, no one in baseball had more hits (49). No one had a higher average (.368). He is still only 27. Is who he is right now who he will be for the next, say, five years?

“Everyone evolves and learns,” Turner said. “As a player, you always want to get better. I’ve always strived to be consistent, and that means making adjustments. Sometimes you try to do that, but it’s not the right adjustment, and you’re creating something out of nothing.

“This year, I think I’ve started to learn myself a lot better, and that’s helped me slow the game down a lot better. I try to fix things in real time because I don’t want to waste anything. When I go up there and have an at-bat where I roll over a pitch or something, and I feel like, ‘Man, I should have hit that much better,’ I want to have the mind-set that if I get that pitch the very next at-bat, I’m prepared to do better with it. I’m working at it constantly, so hopefully I’m better at it.”

That’s a mature approach. When Turner was a rookie in 2016, when he played 73 games and hit .342 with a .937 OPS that — before this year — was the best of his career, I remember having a conversation with Werth, the old Nats left fielder. We were wondering what Turner, then a 23-year-old with both uncommon speed and pop, might become. I said something like, “I guess it looks easy when you’re hitting .340, and he’s not always going to hit .340.”

Werth stopped and stared at me. “Are you sure?”

Werth’s points: Turner’s speed gives him the opportunity to turn outs into hits, and his gap-to-gap power — he had 35 extra-base hits in just 324 plate appearances that season — could make him special.

And yet, four years later, Turner has never been an all-star. In discussions of the game’s best shortstops, he is lost in a sea of Cleveland’s Francisco Lindor, Houston’s Carlos Correa, Boston’s Xander Bogaerts, Corey Seager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Javy Baez of the Chicago Cubs and now even Fernando Tatis Jr., the young San Diego star.

Yet here are some shortstop OPSs since 2016, through Tuesday: Seager .853, Bogaerts .846, Correa .839, Lindor .837, Turner .835, Baez .810. (For the purposes of this discussion, dismiss the Coors Field-inflated stats of Colorado’s Trevor Story, a fine player who has a career .992 OPS in Denver that drops to .768 everywhere else.)

Turner fits right in among the best. And he might be getting better, whether anyone outside of Washington notices or not. His ranks among shortstops this year: first in OPS (1.057) and on-base percentage (.426), second to Tatis in slugging percentage (.632).

“I’m focused on being as good of a player and teammate as I can be,” Turner said. “I’m one of those guys who tries to say you control what you can control. That’s how I prepare, how focused I am each at-bat. But I can’t control if the next guy’s playing better than me.

“Last year was the most fun I’ve ever had in my entire life, what we did with all those guys. I’d trade any individual reward for that — recreating last year.”

The Nationals, right now, don’t appear to be capable of recreating 2019 in 2020. But if they do become a contender again, it’ll be in part because Trea Turner has developed into one of baseball’s best shortstops, a process that could be happening before our eyes.

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