Philly Front Office

Considering Trea Turner has one of the longest remaining contracts in baseball, fell off a cliff at the plate and in the field, AND has a No-Trade clause, you are probably thinking there is absolutely no way the Phillies can get rid of him. That’s probably true, but it is also no fun at all! The trick is finding another team who will trade their bad for our bad, so I have combed the bottom of the contract bin to cook up some fake but at least semi-realistic trades to consider.

What to Know About Trea Turner

• Remaining Contract: 7/$191m with no trade clause
• 34 years old in June
• Still really fast
• Wants to play shortstop, which matters in him waiving his no trade clause
• His 2025 was objectively good: 5.4 WAR, batting title, .812 OPS, MVP-5, above average defense
• His 2026 was objectively terrible: -.1 WAR, .675 OPS, hilariously bad defense, went from crushing lefties to being crushed

Trade Ideas

• Houston Platter
  • Carlos Correa (always injured infielder) and either Christian Walker (1B) or Tatsuya Imai (P)
  • Correa 2/$40.5m + 4 vesting options, Walker 1/$20m, Imai 1/$18m + 1/$18m option
  • Correa’s deal vests with plate appearances which may or may not become a problem for whatever team he is on. The problem for everyone is that no one knows how much he will actually play. He was limited to 31 games last year and famously lost two gargantuan contracts for failing physicals. Houston does this trade with the understanding that Jeremy Pena gets traded somewhere else.¹ They would do it because Imai was terrible last year and Turner for all of his problems is more reliable than Correa. Walker had a bounce back year last season, but he is also 36 and expensive. Getting him to play first means Bryce Harper to the outfield. The Astros would be cutting salary in the move in the short term which is something they are regularly interested in. Maybe the Phillies have to kick in some money but not as much as you would think.
• Straight up for Kris Bryant
  • Rockies OF who hasn’t played since April 12, 2025 and hasn’t been productive since 2022
  • 2/$52m remaining on his contract
  • Kris Bryant is not expected to play another minute of professional baseball and the majority of his 7/$182m contract has been a lost cause. Colorado is down to the final 2 years of that deal, but they could conceivably trade the inactive Bryant for the active Turner and hope for the best. Considering the extra 5 years though, the Phillies would likely have to hold on to some of Turner’s salary. This would be a pure salary dump move for the Phillies. Then there is getting Turner to approve a move to a historically dreadful franchise (though Denver is a very nice area).
• The Giants?
  • Willy Adames (SS) OR Matt Chapman (3B)
  • Adames 5/$155.7m, Chapman 4/$100.7m
  • Adames had a bad second season in SF (not as bad as Turner’s, but that doesn’t make it good). The reason he is here though is because his contract isn’t as simple as it seems. When he signed his 7 year deal, it was heavily backloaded. After paying around $13m each of the last 2 years, that balloons to over $31m from here on out. That’s pretty rough. The best version of Turner is better than the best version of Adames though and both teams could welcome the change.
  • The thing with Chapman is that even at 34 years old, he plays amazing defense. It isn’t even getting worse either, he’s just exceptionally good at it. His hitting stats have never been great, but he’s usually good for a bunch of doubles, around 20 HRs, and enough walks to keep pitchers honest. Last year though, those numbers started to slip. Was that due to back injuries that eventually ended his season in June? Don’t know. Not considering the injury, Chapman is better than Turner today. The Phillies would either need to kick in some prospect value or cash to make a deal happen. This would probably be the best move on the list, but unfortunately that makes it the most unlikely.
• The Prodigy
  • Corey Seager, SS Rangers
  • 5/$157.5 remaining
  • The Rangers want to get rid of Corey Seager and have been known to be trying to cut costs for a few years now since their TV deal changed. Ideally, they would probably want to just flat get off of Seager’s deal to rid themselves of his massive injury-prone obligation, but the Phillies may be able to offer something in addition to savings, reliability. To make this work, it starts with the Phillies agreeing to eat let’s say 25% of Turner’s deal. That drops it to around $20m per season. From there, the Phillies would need to kick in a prospect or too, probably someone like Bryan Rincon and more. The Rangers would get someone not as good but who plays a ton more games and costs around $11m less per season. The Phillies get the high end bat they need even if he is not as reliable and is paid more. It’s wild to think that this might be possible.
• The Padres?
  • Manny Machado (3B) OR Xander Bogaerts (SS)
  • Machado 7/$273.6m, Bogarts 7/$178.2m
  • Machado probably has the worst contract in baseball. He is 33 and just had his worst offensive season by a lot. However, he did hit 30 HRs, walked 76 times, and he is a right-handed 3rd baseman. He’s still a big upgrade over Alec Bohm. That contract though! It was gross just typing it. The Padres would actually have to give us money to take it considering it’s about $12m per year higher than Trea.
  • Bogarts signed with San Diego the same summer that Trea signed with Philadelphia. Their contracts are almost identical too. While Bogaerts outperformed Turner the first year of their deals, the last two have belonged to Turner by a lot. In 2026 though, they were about even. In just looking for something new for both players, a straight swap might actually work if the players agreed to it. Not sure either team would take that bet though.
• Because I am obligated to do this…
  • Mike Trout, Eagles fan
  • 4/$148.5m remaining
  • A deal like this seemed a lot more likely a year ago when Trout was hurt and ineffective. Then he had to go and put up a 4 win season and get back all of his trade value. The Angels are under new ownership though and they might want to actually rebuild without Trout’s albatross deal and with Anthony Rendon finally off the books. So why then would they want to take on Turner’s long term deal? Because he is a lot more reliable than Trout who has only played in 538 of 972 games the last 6 seasons and is around $10m cheaper per season. Considering the Angels have nothing going on in their infield other than Zack Neto, Turner would easily move to 2b or 3b.
• Anyone!
  • Trading Turner isn’t really as hard as it seems from a money standpoint. Excuse me? It’s true. The trick is just how much of the contract the Phillies need to eat. There are still teams out there who will believe in a guy with elite speed and two batting titles in his back pocket. He was really bad in 2026, but he was really good in 2025 too. Teams will discount that for $27m per season. For $13.5m per season though? That’s a different story.
  • How much less angry would you be if tomorrow, Turner went to the Phillies and said, “you know what, I want to give back half my remaining contract.” That doesn’t fix his need to chase outside pitches or his problems in the field, but it sure as hell makes them easier to tolerate and to lighten the pressure. That’s what another team would be getting. The Phillies would probably be decently happy to do it too. Having a $13.5m budget deficit is better than having a $27m black hole.

1. Which could even be Philadelphia, but treat it as a completely separate deal because for the most part, it would be. ↩︎

Photo: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license by Zach McHoul (cropped and edited)

Source: Spotrac