The Phillies Need Way More From Trea Turner

The Philadelphia Phillies have a lot of problems right now.

They just broke a 10-game losing streak, their longest of the 21st century. They’re tied with the Mets for the worst record in baseball. The only series they’ve won all year were against the Nationals and Rockies, two teams that lost a combined 215 games last season.

Meanwhile, the Braves are already 10.5 games ahead of the Phillies in the NL East. And of course, literally every team in the National League is ahead of the Phillies in the Wild Card race. Even the Rockies. Even the Nationals. Even the Mets (on a tiebreaker).

There are two simple answers for why the Phillies have lost so many games. Number one: They aren’t scoring enough runs. Number two: Their opponents haven’t had the same problem.

Only two teams have given up more runs per game than the Phillies. Only two teams have scored fewer. Their -54 run differential is the worst in the sport by 24 runs. That’s nearly one run per game worse than any other team in the league. The gap between the Phillies in last place and the Mets (-30) in 29th is the same as the gap between the Mets and the Angels in 16th (-6).

On an individual level, very few players have lived up to expectations. Yet, there is one whose slow start particularly stands out. If the Phillies are going to turn things around, they need more – so much more – from Trea Turner.

A Top-Heavy Lineup Only Works When the Top Is Actually Heavy

The Phillies rank second-last in the majors in batting average, on-base percentage, OPS, and wRC+. That’s why they’re only averaging 3.6 runs per game. That’s bad. We’re talking 2023 Athletics, 2024 White Sox, 2025 Pirates bad.

The biggest black hole in the batting order has been Alec Bohm, who ranks last among qualified NL hitters in every triple-slash category. The thing is, Bohm has been so bad that we know positive regression is coming. It has to be. He isn’t going to run a .163 BABIP with a 75-point gap between his wOBA and xwOBA all season.

This isn’t to say Bohm’s not a problem. It definitely is. But I’ll worry about him once the numbers are realistically bad instead of comically so. It’s a similar story for Bryson Stott.

Others like Adolis García, Justin Crawford, and Rafael Marchan have struggled too, but expectations were never that high for any of those three. Indeed, that’s precisely the point I’m getting at.

The Phillies built an offense that will live and die by three bats: Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, and Trea Turner. If those three hit like they’re supposed to, the rest of the offense only needs to complement them. That’s pretty much how it worked in 2025, when Philadelphia had a top-10 offense and won 96 games.

The 2025 Phillies Offense

Player	wRC+	Offensive Runs Above Average (Off)
Kyle Schwarber	152	43.6
Bryce Harper	131	22.8
Trea Turner	125	26.8
Everyone else	96	18.5

Right now, Schwarber is on track for another 50-homer season. Harper is pacing to pass 100 RBI for the first time since 2019. They both rank among the NL’s top 25 in OPS, xwOBA, and FanGraphs’ offensive runs above average (Off).

Turner isn’t doing his part. The Phillies’ leadoff hitter is batting .230 with an 85 wRC+. He has five doubles, three home runs, and three stolen bases through 28 games. That’s a massive step back from a season in which he swiped 36 bases, won the NL batting title, and finished fifth in MVP voting.

Between his 125 wRC+ and 8.0 BsR in 2025, FanGraphs estimates Turner was a top-25 offensive player in baseball. That’s why his performance right now is so disappointing. Sure, Bohm has been worse. But Bohm was only worth 0.1 runs above average last season, while Turner gave the Phillies nearly 27 runs of offensive value.

This lineup’s recipe for success is Schwarber, Harper, and Turner leading the charge. For the Phillies to look like the team they were last year, Turner needs to look like the player he was last year.

Good Hitters Have Bad Stretches

I’ll concede that it might be time for the Phillies to start worrying about the deep hole they’ve dug themselves into. Thankfully, there’s no reason to sound the alarms about Trea Turner just yet.

It’s not quite as simple as saying that Turner has been the victim of bad luck. Yes, his .264 BABIP is well below his .338 career average. But his 35.6% hard-hit rate is also well below his career average (41.1%), and he’s hitting more weak fly balls than usual. His .292 xwOBA is pretty much right in line with his .299 wOBA.

However, that doesn’t mean he isn’t going to get back on track.

Turner has had a long, productive career. He has a 121 wRC+ in nearly 1,300 major league games and a 125 wRC+ over the last five years. Those numbers convey a whole lot more than anything he does in one bad month.

Sometimes, good hitters have bad stretches. Case in point? Just look at Turner’s worst stretches in 2025. Or 2024. Or 2023.

By wRC+, this March/April is only the seventh-worst full month of Turner’s career. It’s the sixth-worst by hard-hit rate and the fifth-worst by xwOBA. That’s not to say the last 28 games haven’t been disappointing, but the point is, we’ve seen him bounce back from worse.

Turner has had at least one similarly poor 28-game stretch in every full season he’s played.

In fact, thanks to the Stathead Baseball span finder, I can tell you that Turner has had ninety (that’s 90!) 28-game periods in his career with an OPS lower than his .658 OPS right now. To be clear, that’s not 90 distinct stretches, there’s a lot of overlap in there, but still, that’s about 7% of his career.

The graphs tab at FanGraphs helps to make a similar point. Anything below the red line I inserted is a 28-game stretch in which Turner had a lower wRC+ than he has right now:

Finally, I’ll point to Turner’s rolling xwOBA breakdown from Baseball Savant. Turner has taken 125 PA this season, so this isn’t perfectly reflective of his year to date (but I think it’s close enough). Yes, he’s slumping right now, but not in a way he hasn’t slumped many times before:

The Turning Point

Trea Turner hasn’t been the worst player on the Phillies this year. Yet, his struggles might be their biggest problem. This team is built on the premise that Turner is a star. They can survive below-average performance from a lot of guys, but their All-Star shortstop isn’t one of them.

The Phillies still have the time and talent to get back in the postseason race. However, if they’re going to do so, they need Turner to start hitting the ball harder, reaching base more often, and wreaking all kinds of havoc with his speed when he does. Until that happens, the hole they’re in is just going to keep getting deeper, with less and less time for them to escape.