Turner, Stott building a rapport
New double-play combo getting to know each other
CLEARWATER, Fla. — The daily schedule is tacked to a corkboard near the entrance of the Phillies’ spring training clubhouse. It’s four or five pages long, with 64 players divided into workout groups and shuttling between four back fields and a half-dozen bullpen mounds. The whole thing is more difficult to decode than the SEPTA railway map.
So, Trea Turner counts on Bryson Stott to tell him where to go.
“I was kind of riding him for a while, making sure that he made me on time for everything,” Turner said Saturday. “Because I don’t know where I’m going, and I can’t read that schedule. But he can. So, I was kind of giving him a hard time.”
It was good-natured (mostly) and part of the on-the-fly bonding process between Turner and Stott, the Phillies’ newly minted doubleplay combination.
Before last month, they knew each other only just to say hello when their paths crossed at second base as opponents. But Turner signed an 11-year, $300 million contract with the Phillies in December, a blockbuster deal that prompted Stott’s move to second base.
And with Turner leaving camp after Sunday’s game to join Team USA for the World Baseball Classic, he made it a point over the last 2 ½ weeks to spend as much time as possible with Stott.
Hanging out in the clubhouse? Check.
Grabbing dinner? You bet. Rounds of golf? Oh-so-many rounds.
“I don’t know if it was a plan, like we’re going to come in and make ourselves be friends with each other,” Stott said. “But I think we kind of hit it off, not because we had to but because he’s easy to get along with and I think I’m an easy person to get along with.”
Much of the rapport between Turner and Stott developed on the golf course, of all places.
Turner briefly teamed with Kyle Schwarber in Washington in 2021 and was already friendly with J.T. Realmuto. They invited Stott to complete a foursome at Countryside Country Club last month, and ever since, the group has been out on the links “a ton,” according to Turner, including at a team event on the eve of the first Grapefruit League game.
Everyone concedes that Realmuto is the best golfer in the bunch. (“He’s annoying,” Stott said. “J.T.’s just good at everything.”) Schwarber is Schwarber, a grip-and-rip drive-crusher who keeps the mood light. Stott describes Turner as “a talker” about, well, everything, including plenty of trash.
“He’ll throw some jabs at Schwarber or ,” Stott said. “Obviously you don’t know that about him before because you’re not in someone else’s clubhouse. They can go at it. It’s pretty funny. You could tell they were with each other at one point in their careers. I think that’s really cool, just the relationship that they have.” Stott’s role in the group?
“Oh, I’m the instigator,” he said. “I stir the pot up.”
Turner, two lockers down from Stott and between Nick Castellanos and Bryce Harper in a highrent section of the clubhouse, confirmed that characterization.
“You always have one of those on a team or in a clubhouse that kind of stirs pots and then walks away and just laughs. Stott’s pretty good at it,” Turner said. “I’ve got respect for it because I do that at times.” Turner and Stott have other, baseball-related things in common.
Stott has played second base, including for two months last season when Jean Segura was out with a fractured index finger. But he’s a natural shortstop, so there will be a measure of readjustment to the right side of the field.
Turner made the move in 2021 after getting traded at the deadline to the Dodgers, who had Corey Seager entrenched at shortstop. Despite having played shortstop since 2017, Turner made 48 of 51 starts down the stretch at second base.
“I always thought second base was more of a two-handed position, just with the double plays and turns,” Turner said. “Shortstop, you can play a little more one-handed. For me, it was just angles. I played so much on the shortstop side, when I went over , it felt really weird.”
Stott figures to have an easier time. He actually graded out better at second base than at shortstop last season, according to Sports Info Solutions’ defensive runs saved metric.
But the early weeks of spring training have been a time for Stott and Turner to get used to playing alongside one another. Neither has had an opportunity to work in a stable middle-infield combination.
As a second baseman, Stott played alongside Didi Gregorius last season; as a shortstop, he worked mostly with Segura. In four full seasons as the Nationals’ primary shortstop, Turner had four primary double-play partners (Daniel Murphy, Wilmer Difo, Brian Dozier, and Luis García). He worked with Gavin Lux last year with the Dodgers.
To Turner, the relationship with a second baseman boils down to two things: communication and selflessness.
“You have a quick conversation of, ‘Where do you like the feed ,’ and then it’s your job to give him that feed every time,” Turner said. “It’s a short conversation. But then it’s putting in the work so that you can help him, and he needs to put in the work so that he can help you.”
Turner and Stott have played together in two exhibition games. Turner is scheduled to play Sunday against the Blue Jays before leaving for Team USA’s camp in Phoenix. The work with Stott will pick up after he returns later this month.
They’ll probably get back on the golf course a few more times, too.
“You talk some crap to him, he can give away some strokes,” Turner said. “But he’s a pretty good player. It’s been good. It’s been fun getting to know him and everybody.”