How Justin Turner Got Away From the Mets
An excerpt from Mike Puma’s new book, If These Walls Could Talk: New York Mets
Justin Turner is still trying to get over the Mets punting on a surprisingly competitive season. It’s several years after the fact, and Turner has emerged as an All-Star third baseman with the Dodgers after a nondescript Mets career as a utility infielder. He’s at his locker in the home clubhouse at Dodger Stadium reflecting on the great friendships he formed with the Mets, but it’s clear he was frustrated about the manner in which the organization was run.
“The hardest one for me was 2012; we were a few games out of first place going into the All-Star break and we had the worst bullpen in baseball,” Turner said. “Maybe a couple of middle-leverage arms helps us play more meaningful games down the road and we basically had a meeting and were told, ‘This is who we are, we are either going to win or lose with this group, we aren’t making any trades.’ We came out of the All-Star break and went [1–10], so I think looking back on that it was probably one of the harder things to deal with during that time.”
“If we make a couple of moves for a couple of small bullpen arms and get some help down there, maybe we are playing meaningful games in August and September. That was disappointing because they were basically in a holding pattern, waiting for the cavalry, waiting for the Harveys and Wheelers and they didn’t want to do anything. They didn’t care if they won or lost basically because they were waiting for those guys.”
These were lean payroll times for the Mets, in the aftermath of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme in which team owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz had a reported $500 million invested at the time of Madoff’s arrest in 2009.
Turner was driving to San Diego, about to represent the Mets at a Players’ Association meeting following the 2013 season, when he received a phone call informing him he had been non-tendered by the club. A 28-year-old infielder, Turner had slashed .280/.319/.385 in a backup role for the Mets and expected to return.
“Standing up in that Players’ Association meeting and introducing myself, ‘Justin Turner, I just got non-tendered an hour ago,’ wasn’t fun,” Turner recalled in 2019.
The Mets, and the rest of baseball, couldn’t have foreseen what was coming next. Turner signed a minor league deal with his hometown Dodgers and suddenly became a force. He hit .340 in his first year with the Dodgers and then improved his launch angle, averaging 21 homers over the next three seasons, which included an All-Star appearance in 2017.
“He basically came out of nowhere like a J.D. Martinez, but I don’t think that would have happened with us, just because we didn’t have the same playing opportunity,” [Sandy] Alderson said, before conceding that David Wright’s spinal stenosis that shortened his career might have provided an opening for Turner. “But I am happy for Justin, we didn’t see that.”
“There was another trade we made, right after my first year, Angel Pagan, and he went off with the Giants, good for him, so there were a couple of those that got away. But I don’t think in Turner’s case it was foreseeable, because actually Omar [Minaya] had claimed him off waivers from the Orioles the year before I got there, so this was a guy who had bounced around.”
Wayne Krivsky was actually the driving force behind Turner landing with the Mets, after a stint with the Orioles. Krivsky had just arrived to the Orioles’ front office in 2008 as a special assistant when he was asked to help complete a trade with his former team, the Reds, who had fired him as general manager earlier in the year. The Orioles were trading catcher Ramon Hernandez to the Reds for utilityman Ryan Freel and players to be named later. As somebody who knew the Reds’ farm system, Krivsky was asked to recommend players to Orioles general manager Andy MacPhail who would complete the deal. Krivsky didn’t have to give the list of supplemental players a second look.
“And I said, ‘Andy, I have got to tell you: Go get Justin Turner,’” Krivsky said. The following season, Krivsky was working under Minaya with the Mets and happened to be in the office the day Turner was placed on outright waivers by the Orioles. “I told Omar that we had to grab Justin Turner, the Orioles were making a mistake,” Krivsky said. “This guy could do some things, he could hit, he was versatile. He could play all over the diamond and he was a very instinctive baseball player. That is how he ended up with the Mets.”
Turner was a popular player in the Mets clubhouse and wasn’t shy about voicing his opinions, even jabbing team COO Jeff Wilpon in front of spectators on a back field at spring training. Turner had arrived early to camp for workouts—paying his own way—and Wilpon questioned why he wasn’t wearing the same garb as his teammates.
“I had an orange shirt and everybody else had a blue shirt on,” Turner said. “I made some smart comment like, ‘You’re not paying me to be here, I am going to wear what I want to wear. As soon as I am supposed to be here, on your dime, I will wear whatever you want me to.’”
During the season, Turner would receive occasional phone calls from Wilpon.
“He asked me to change my walk-up music, because I think his daughter wanted to hear certain songs,” Turner said, noting that he complied.
“The boss tells you to do something, and it’s hard to say no.”
This excerpt from If These Walls Could Talk: New York Mets by Mike Puma is reprinted with the permission of Triumph Books. For more information and to order a copy, please visit Amazon,Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, or TriumphBooks.com/WallsMets.