Chicago Cubs' past free-agent busts shouldn't be held against newest addition

The Chicago Cubs signing of Justin Turner has received mixed reactions. While some like having the experienced veteran infielder with an impressive pedigree, others worry about his age. Neither feeling is necessarily invalid. Turner is a career .285/.363/.458 and .821 OPS hitter coming off a .737 OPS and 117 wRC+ season in 2024, but he's also 40 years old.

Signing "over-the-hill" players has bothered many Cubs fans for the past several years. Especially when there have been bigger fish in the sea to catch that the Cubs didn't. Two names that immediately come to mind are Eric Hosmer and Trey Mancini in 2023. Two 1B/DHs who came to Chicago at the end of their careers. Sure, remembering them not producing and eventually getting cut mid-season can make one skeptical about adding another guy nearing the end of his playing days.

Is it really fair though to compare Turner to them? There are some things to consider.

The plan for Turner is likely backup 1B/DH (probably not playing much 3B anymore), unlike Hosmer and Mancini, who were platooning at first and DH together. Hosmer and Mancini played in a combined 110 games for the Cubs in 2023 and they started 90 of them. Michael Busch will be the regular first baseman with Seiya Suzuki the primary DH, barring injuries. There will be matchups (lefty opposing starter) and rest days that call for Turner to play but he is not intended to be a primary solution.

Silencing the fear of the Cubs adding Justin Turner

As mentioned before, Turner is coming off a solid season for his age. In addition to being a .737 OPS and 117 wRC+ producer, he hit .259/.354/.383 with 11 homers and was a 1.2 fWAR player in 139 games. While Hosmer's slash before joining the Cubs did not look all that bad, .268/.334/.382 in 2022, he had an alarming groundball rate of 56.8% with an 18% line drive rate and had not had a wRC+ over 104 in a 162-game season (not counting 2020) since 2017. Mancini had a decent 2022 in terms of overall numbers, but struggled in the second half, hitting just .177/.266/.349. Last season Turner's groundball rate was 33% with a 26% line drive rate and hit .297/.382/.436 in the second half.

Does this guarantee Turner will be more productive in 2025 than Hosmer or Mancini in 2023, or at the level the Cubs hope for? No. Being 40 and coming off a season having among the slowest bat speeds in the Majors is enough to question what they'll get from Turner. The results could be the same or similar to Hosmer or Mancini in the end, it's just arguably a tad unfair to compare the two situations. Not completely unreasonable, but there are enough differences to acknowledge.