Justin Turner stays with the Dodgers on a 2-year, $ 34 million contract

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

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

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

Turner was one more during the first half of his career in the Major Leagues. The New York Mets did not bid for him in December 2013, he remained unsigned for the next two months and then agreed to a minor league contract with the Dodgers. At the age of 29, he began to establish himself among the third most productive base in the game.

Turner hit 297/378/508 from 2015 to 2019, racking up 105 home runs, 147 doubles and 21.9 FanGraphs wins over the substitution in 645 regular-season games. He formed an All-Star team, finished in the top 10 in the National League MVP voting on two occasions and set the standard for the Dodgers ’batting philosophy as their most consistent performer.

Along the way, Turner contributed several memorable postseason moments, most notably his home run walk-off against the Chicago Cubs in Game 2 of the 2017 National League Championship Series. According to ESPN Stats & Information, he ranks first place in Dodgers post-season history in hits (79), homers (12), runs (40) and rushing runs (41).

His greatest achievement finally came last season, when Turner – a lifelong Dodgers fan who grew up in Lakewood, California, and identifies Kirk Gibson’s famous emerging homer as his first baseball record – – helped lead the franchise to its first championship in more than 30 years.

Turner recorded an OPS of 1,066 in six World Series games against the Tampa Bay Rays, but the highlight of his career was clouded after the Major Leagues informed the Dodgers in the final stages of a possible deciding factor. which Turner had tested positive for COVID-19.

Turner, the Dodgers ’player representative, was retired at the start of the eighth inning and was not on the field to celebrate the final out. But he broke protocol and re-entered the field to take pictures with the World Series trophy and was seen around his teammates without mouthguards, which angered MLB officials and the unbridled criticism from people across the country. MLB finally decided not to discipline him.

ESPN’s Alden González contributed to this report.

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