Dave Dombrowski says Trea Turner will open next season at shortstop

Dave Dombrowski said Trea Turner will open next season at shortstop, but he made it clear that the job isn’t guaranteed. Dombrowski told Trea Turner personally that he has to play well there to keep it. For a guy owed $27.3 million every year through 2033, that’s about as public a warning as you’ll ever hear from this front office.

Dave Dombrowski said he plans to have Trea Turner open the season at SS, but he told him personally that he must play well there to stay there.

— Todd Zolecki (@ToddZolecki) October 15, 2026

Trea Turner’s Very Bad 2026

The infield defense was a disaster this year, and Trea Turner was a big reason why. In 2025, he graded out as one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball. In 2026, he was minus-8 Outs Above Average, tied for 16th out of 19 qualified shortstops. That’s not a slump. That’s going from elite to near the bottom of the league in one season.

The bat didn’t save him either. Trea Turner hit .242/.297/.378 over 157 games, the worst offensive season of his career, while Mattingly kept penciling him in near the top of the lineup. When your $300 million shortstop can’t hit and can’t field, something has to give. Dombrowski is finally saying that out loud.

The Bigger Problem Is Age

Trea Turner isn’t the only one sliding. The Phillies entered 2026 with the third-oldest group of position players in baseball by average age. That’s fine when Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber are still raking, and they are. But Turner, J.T. Realmuto and Alec Bohm all finished below average by OPS+. That’s three everyday players on the wrong side of the aging curve, and Mattingly is going to have to figure out how to manage around it.

The Farm Isn’t Ready to Bail Them Out

The Phillies’ farm system has real impact talent at the very top, but it thins out quickly after that. Andrew Painter’s jump after the All-Star break was the most encouraging development of the year, and he looked like a big-league starter down the stretch and in October.

Aidan Miller is the name everyone wants to see, and he barely played. A back injury limited him to four minor league games in 2026, which is brutal timing after he hit .264/.392/.433 across two levels in 2025. If Turner can’t hold shortstop, Miller is the obvious long-term answer, but he needs a healthy year first.

Justin Crawford made the Opening Day roster out of spring training and then struggled in his first real test against big-league pitching. He has the tools, but he isn’t the guy who fixes this lineup next year.

Talk Is Cheap

Putting Turner on notice is the right message. I do think that he should be in the outfield at the start of Spring Training to better learn the position. All of that is assuming there’s baseball in 2027, which is far from a sure thing too.

The problem is that Dombrowski is the one who handed out the contract that makes this so hard to fix, and he’s the one who keeps calling this aging roster good enough. Turner needs to be better. So does the guy telling him that.

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