It’s up to Kevin Long to bring about change with Phillies hitters. And it starts with Trea Turner.

Long knows Turner better than anyone. And after watching Turner get himself out too much in 2024, Long has some ideas to help him revert to the hitter he was earlier in his career.

Phillies shortstop Trea Turner, who will be a few days late to spring training for personal reasons, will be trying to get back to swinging at fewer pitches out of the strike zone.Read moreHeather Khalifa / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Published Feb. 17, 2025, 5:40 p.m. ET

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Let’s start here: Nobody with the Phillies knows Trea Turner better than Kevin Long.

Long coached Turner for 3½ seasons in Washington. They won a World Series together in 2019. Long was there for the best 60-game stretch of Turner’s career in 2020 and the first half of 2021, which culminated with a batting title for the star shortstop.

So, nobody is better suited to have the tough conversations with Turner about reverting to the hitter that he was early in his career as opposed to being the face of a Phillies lineup that became too easy to attack by the end of last season.

It’s a tough conversation because Turner batted .295 last season, the ninth-best mark in baseball, and was 24% more productive than the average major-league hitter based on OPS+.

“And he gets crucified,” Long said. “I think it’s a little unjust.”

Maybe. But Long also knows how much better Turner can be. He saw it back in their Washington days. In Turner’s first seven major-league seasons, he swung at 26% of pitches out of the strike zone. His “chase rate,” in hitting parlance, has risen to 34.7% through two seasons with the Phillies.

The issue wasn’t ever as pronounced as the second half of last season. Turner’s out-of-the-zone swing rate spiked to 38% after the All-Star break. He was susceptible to sliders, in particular, so opponents went after him with offspeed pitches away more than ever.

And after going 3-for-15 with five strikeouts in a four-game divisional-round vanquishing by the Mets, Turner observed that he and other hitters in an aggressive Phillies lineup tend to “get ourselves out,” a comment that caught the attention of president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski.

“That’s the truth,” Long said over the weekend. “If I don’t have to throw a strike and I can get somebody out, why wouldn’t I do it?”

It will be up to Long, among the most highly regarded hitting coaches in the sport, to bring about change. And it won’t be easy.

Phillies hitters have heard so much about their tendency to “chase” pitches that “it has become like a bad four-letter word,” Long said. The lineup is also filled with older hitters who are set in their approach. Nick Castellanos, for example, won’t suddenly lay off curveballs out of the zone after more than a decade of chasing them.

But Turner is different, according to Long. Because he did it earlier in his career. He even did it early last season.

Turner is late to Phillies camp because of what manager Rob Thomson described as “a personal thing.” He’s due to arrive on Tuesday and take his entry physical Wednesday.

And then he will get to work with Long, who visited with him near his home in West Palm Beach, Fla., in early January.

“Can an old dog learn a new trick?” Long said. “In this case, he’s got to go back to some of the simple tricks that he had in his bag and in his back pocket. And I know he can do it.”

Turner batted .343/.392/.460 and swung at only 26.7% of pitches out of the zone through 33 games last season before straining his hamstring. Upon returning after a 39-game absence, he batted .277/.317/.473 with a 36.6% chase rate.

A few other numbers jump out. Before signing with the Phillies, Turner had a 25% line-drive rate and pulled 27.6% of balls to left field. With the Phillies, his line-drive rate is down to 22.6% while his pull rate is up to 28.8%.

“He really had a good feel earlier in his career of being able to use the whole field,” Long said. “It was backing up the ball a little better and taking pitches that were on the outer third and going the other way [to right field].”

But over the last few years, Long said Turner seemed to focus more on hunting balls that are close to him and driving them to left field. Maybe it’s his way of compensating for becoming more vulnerable to those offspeed pitches away.

“He’s probably hit some more home runs and he’s had a little bit more power because of it,” Long said. “But I think he would give some of that up to be able to consistently handle those pitches that are middle-away. I think that’s the give-and-take.”

Indeed, Long believes that Turner can actually benefit more from flicking outside pitches to right field.

“If you’re getting hits on those more consistently, pitchers aren’t going to continue to let you do that,” Long said. “They’re going to say, ‘OK, I’m going to pound him [inside],’ and then now he’s got them right where he wants them.”

But the biggest difference in Turner over the years might be in his head.

Long recently reminded Turner of the 60-game season in 2020, when COVID protocols prohibited hitters from leaving the dugout during a game to watch their previous at-bats in the video room.

Turner’s numbers in the two-month sprint: .335/.394/.588 for a career-best .982 OPS.

“He really wasn’t able to get deep into it, and I thought it was one of the best years he’s ever had,” Long said. “Sometimes he overthinks his mechanics.

“Since he’s been [with the Phillies], he has been either really good or really bad. And those inconsistencies come when he loses the strike zone. When you go from 28 to 39 [% chase rate], you’re now expanding and swinging at too many pitches. He’s got to reel that in a little bit, and he did that in the first half. So, he can do it.

“All these things that we’re talking about with Trea are all things that he’s done before. We just need to not let some of those things get too far away from him.”