Washington Nationals fans are going to hate to hear about how Trea Turner wanted to be a Nat for the rest of his career.
Yeah. It’s true.
The team traded Turner, along with Max Scherzer, in what came across as a hastily-arranged trade deadline deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers last July 30.
The reason given at the time by the Nats front office was that they’d made multiple offers to Turner, a generational talent at shortstop, a premium position, but Turner had rebuffed them all and indicated his interest in testing the free-agent market when his team control expired at the end of the 2022 season.
Turner told a different story to the Washington Post‘s Jesse Daughtery on Tuesday.
“I wanted to play for them the rest of my career,” Turner said. “If they offered something even close to what I thought was my worth, I probably would have took it, and I’d still be there. But they obviously didn’t do that.”
Turner has been worth 5.9 WAR per season to the Nats and now the Dodgers, slashing .303/.357/.493 with 118 homers and 220 stolen bases.
His dealings with the Nats front office resonate more with the team now openly considering offers for the franchise’s other generational talent, slugger Juan Soto, who turned down a reported 15-year, $440 million deal last month.
In Turner’s case, he said he feels “communication is key, and I don’t think the communication was good.”
“I just wanted it to be fair,” Turner said.
“I know things change and what not, but I just never thought it was communicated how things had changed, you know what I mean?” Turner said. “When the spring started over there last season, they were telling me they wanted to build around me. It seems like the same stuff is happening with Juan right now.”
Not good.
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Chris Graham
