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Dodgers shortstop Trea Turner is in the last year of his contract, and he’s expected to be one of the biggest shortstop targets in this offseason’s free-agent class, along with Dansby Swanson and (if they opt out of their current contracts) Xander Bogaerts and Carlos Correa.
One team that might be looking for a long-term shortstop is the Chicago Cubs, which has Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago thinking about what the Cubs would have to do to land Turner.
But he knows this much when it comes to the Cubs, if Jed Hoyer reaches out trying to make a connection this winter:
He’d need to hear Hoyer’s so-far elusive plan and even-more-elusive timeline for his Rebuild That Shall Not Be Named.
“From learning how this process works from talking to other guys, I think that’s mandatory,” Turner said during a conversation with NBC Sports Chicago on his pending free agency and the Cubs before Wednesday’s Dodgers-Brewers game.
“From multiple organizations, you’d want to know what they expect or where it’s going or what they’re trying to do — kind of a vision,” he said. “Whatever that vision is it is. But I think that’s mandatory.
“You need to know how the next few years look and how that pertains to you and your family and your career,” he added. “It’s definitely a factor in picking a team.”
Call us crazy, but that sounds like bad news for the Cubs and good news for a team that has shown its plan, its timeline, and its vision. Maybe the team Turner is currently playing for, which currently has the best record in MLB and just had its farm system ranked second in baseball by Baseball America?
Wittenmyer’s article has some quotes from Turner about that, too.
“I would love to be here,” said Turner, who reportedly made it known initially last year that he was chapped at the trade that sent him to the other coast last summer. “Whatever it is, from almost any angle you look at it, it seems like [the Dodgers] are the best in baseball, or one of the best. This place is awesome.
“I’d like to be here, and hopefully they feel the same way, that they would love to have me. But if that’s a conversation for later, this offseason, then I’m looking forward to it.”
All in all, while this article is framed in the context of the Cubs’ chances of signing Turner or other big-name free agents (he even got Nomar Garciaparra to say a bunch of nice things about Chicago), it really drives home the fact that, when it comes down to it, a guy like Trea Turner wants to win a lot of games and have a lot of fun doing it. He’s been on good teams, and he’s been on bad teams, and the team he’s on right now is probably the best of the bunch.
Wherever Trea goes, he’s going to get a ton of money; when it comes down to plan, timeline, and vision, there’s no place like his current home.
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