Trea Turner’s Making History in the Bigs

Former NC State shortstop Trea Turner has been on fire since he was called up to the Nationals. Last night Jon Morosi of MLB Network tweeted out one of those random MLB rookie records that only a statistician could cook up.

. @treavturner is the only @MLB player *ever* with 8+ HR and 24+ SB in a rookie season of under 100 games. @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) September 14, 2016

Turner’s power surge in since being called up to the big leagues has been a bit surprising. In 1,192 plate appearances in the minor leagues, Turner only hit 19 home runs. He has hit 8 in only 244 at bats with the Nats.

You might be surprised, but Turner is not.

“No, you guys are going to be way more surprised than I am. I’ve been thinking about that and I think there’s so many factors that people really don’t put enough emphasis on,” Turner said. “You got a little bit better ball up here, the bats are better, a lot of people argue that. Stadiums are better as in there’s less wind with all the structures up. And you play in some tough places in the minor leagues, Syracuse specifically and I think even San Antonio I played in are some of the worst hitting ballparks for home-run wise.“And then I think, as for me personally, I attribute a lot to learning my swing and you play every day and I think if you put a lot of effort into each and every session swing, whatever you want to call it, you can learn stuff. I feel like in the last month and a half I learned how to control some things, how to make adjustments a lot quicker. I think that needs to happen up here or else they’ll expose you real quick.” (Washington Post)

Turner leads all rookies in Triples (6), and ranks 2nd in batting average (.347) and stolen bases (24), 6th in Slugging Percentage (.547), and 8th in OPS (.898).