Cincinnati Reds’ Stuart Turner gets off to a rough start for his MLB career

Stuart Turner is facing tough times at the plate and behind it for the Cincinnati Reds in 2017.

When the Cincinnati Reds selected Stuart Turner in the Rule 5 Draft, they weren’t sure that he was going to make the team.  By showing off both his glove and his defense, Turner made the team.  Now he has to do something to stay on it.

So far in his young MLB career, Turner has had 13 plates appearances over four games.  Turner has 3 strikeouts to go against two hits.  He has no walks yet this season.

In one of the rare occasions that you see it, Turner actually has a lower OBP than batting average.  This happened because he was thrown out trying to extend a single into a double.  That is a rookie mistake, which you can forgive because of the effort.

In the Minnesota Twins’ organization Turner never made it past Double-A.  He spent the 2015 and 2016 seasons as the primary starter in Double-A Charlotte, but always shared the role with an offensive partner.  He got on-base at a .322 clip, but only batted .223 and .239 the past two seasons.

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In four minor league season, Turner was a .241 hitter with 20 home runs in 323 games.  He also struck out 225 times compared to 123 walks.  That isn’t an awful ratio, but you like to see better contact out of someone with so little power.

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While Stuart Turner’s defense has been good, the Cincinnati Reds have some concern regarding his game calling.

In somewhat dramatic twist of fate the constantly improving Tucker Barnhart is fourth in all of baseball in catcher’s ERA.  This is after spending last season as the worst among qualifiers in all of MLB.  Now the Reds have a different problem.

So far this year, Turner ranks 47th of out 66 catchers who have caught an MLB game.

Worse than that, Turner’s CERA is over a run higher than Barnhart.  While that could be a function of the match-ups from the three games which Turner has caught, it appears that something else is going on here.

Turner has shown a good set of fundamentals.  He hasn’t made an error in 32 chances with the ball.  He also hasn’t allowed a passed ball in three games.

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However, Turner also hasn’t caught any of the five base stealers that have made an attempt against him.  So Turner is seeing more runs cross home plate via earned runs than Barnhart and he hasn’t caught a base stealer.  Between that and his slow start offensively, it has been a rough beginning to Turner’s MLB career.