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Max Scherzer wasn’t ready to hang up his cleats and ended up with a very incentive-laden deal to return to the Toronto Blue Jays. He was one of multiple New York Mets players lingering jobless until this week.
It has been a rather unkind free agency for many players. Some very talented players remain unsigned, even ones not near retirement age. Unwilling to spend anything at all and maybe some mistrust in the abilities of these veterans, all five might have to consider retirement unless they’re willing to take a minor league contract.
1) Justin Turner
At 41-years-old, Justin Turner would need to have shown a lot more last season for anyone to call him about a deal. Signing a major league contract seems out of the question. He hit just .219/.288/.319 with 3 home runs in 191 games for the Chicago Cubs. Exclusively a first baseman now, this once upon a time Mets player should face reality. It’s time to move onto the next phase of his career.
Turner managed to get $6 million from the Cubs last offseason. That’s around what Rob Refsnyder and Willi Castro got this offseason in terms of AAV. Those two far more useful players helped set a market Turner won’t come close to matching.
Until 2025, Turner was showing some signs of life. He had a decent run in 2024 which began with the Toronto Blue Jays and ended with the Seattle Mariners. A .259/.354/.383 slash line in a year where he had over 500 plate appearances was enough to convince the Cubs to buy into him.
In a free agent market where Mike Tauchman has to take a minor league contract, Turner is better off calling it quits. Any contract he does get will be light and for the love of the game. We can’t blame him for that.