Los Angeles Dodgers’ Justin Turner remains on a $ 34 million 2-year deal

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Third baseman Justin Turner will remain with the Los Angeles Dodgers, he announced on Twitter on Saturday.

Turner’s deal is guaranteed for two years and $ 34 million, and it includes a club option for a third year, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.

Turner, 36, became a free agent when his four-year $ 64 million contract expired after winning the Dodgers’ World Series in October. Turner, a member of the Dodgers since 2014, is the player with the longest permanent position on the team and the third longest overall player, after Clayton Kershaw (2008) and Kenley Jansen (2010).

Turner was a journeyman for the first half of his Major League-career. He was not offered by the New York Mets in December 2013, went unsigned for the next two months, then agreed to a minor league contract with the Dodgers. At the age of 29, he began to establish himself as one of the game’s most prolific third basemen.

Turner hit .297 / .378 / .508 from 2015 to 2019, amassing 105 homers, 147 doubles, and 21.9 FanGraphs wins over replacements in 645 regular season games. He made an All-Star team, finished in the top 10 twice in the National League MVP voting, and set the tone for the Dodgers’ batting philosophy as their most consistent performer.

Along the way, Turner contributed several memorable moments in the postseason, most notably his walk-off home run against the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of the NL Championship Series 2017. According to research from ESPN Stats & Information, he is in first place in the postseason. history of Dodgers in hits (79), home runs (12), runs (40) and RBI’s (41).

His crowning achievement finally came last season, when Turner – a lifelong Dodgers fan who grew up in Lakewood, California, identifying Kirk Gibson’s famous pinch-hit home run in the 1988 World Series as his first baseball memory – helped lead the franchise into its first championship in more than 30 years.

Turner posted a 1,066 OPS in six World Series games against the Tampa Bay Rays, but his career peak was tarnished after Major League Baseball informed the Dodgers in the late stages of the eventual clincher that Turner had tested positive for COVID-19.

Turner, the player representative for the Dodgers, was removed to start the eighth inning of Game 6 and was not on the field to celebrate the last out. But he broke protocol and re-entered the field to shoot with the World Series trophy and was seen maskless around teammates, the ire of MLB officials and rampant criticism from people across the country. MLB ultimately decided not to discipline him.

ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez contributed to this report.

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