BREAKING: Cubs to Sign First Baseman/DH Justin Turner to One-Year Deal

The Chicago Cubs are finalizing an agreement to sign first baseman and DH Justin Turner, a source confirmed Tuesday morning. Patrick Mooney of The Athletic broke the news.

Turner, 40, will be a valued bench bat and a backup to Michael Busch, the team's primary first baseman. He can also act as a platoon partner for Busch, and a fill-in DH when injuries strike the corner outfield spots and/or Seiya Suzuki heads to the outfield against certain left-handed starters. 

We should be very clear about what this deal isn't. Despite the many years of good work Turner did as the third baseman for the Dodgers, he's no longer capable of handling that position, even on a part-time basis. He's not the new backup third baseman; that job remains Jon Berti's. Rather, Turner (who batted .259/.354/.383 for the Blue Jays and Mariners in 2024) will help the team access better matchups, both to begin games (against southpaw starters) and within them. He suffered a huge loss of bat speed from 2023, when he slugged a robust .455 while calling Fenway Park home, but still has value because of his contact skills and solid swing decisions.

While the risk that Turner will never rediscover his power is profound, he's a well-rounded hitter with a great feel for contact. He's only struck out in 17.6% of his plate appearances since the start of 2023, and he continues to draw walks at an average-plus rate. That could change this year, too, if pitchers perceive the declining degree of danger in his swing, but Turner is a former winner of the Roberto Clemente Award and a smart, highly respected hitter. He'll bring gravitas, a positive attitude, and the wisdom that came with a thoughtful redesign of his swing prior to his late-20s emergence as a star-caliber player at the hot corner, now over a decade ago.

He'll round out the Cubs' positional roster by shielding Busch from some lefties and giving Craig Counsell the luxury of lifting certain hitters to get a matchup edge late in games. In 221 career plate appearances as a pinch-hitter, he has a solid .738 OPS, although it's been a long time since that was a prominent role for him.

Almost no one swung a slower stick than Turner in 2024, but he retains the special capacity for meeting the ball with the fat part of the bat that helped him turn a corner and access unexpected power when he got to the Dodgers in 2014. It's an imperfect translation, because of wind and temperature effects, but this chart of Turner's line drives and fly balls since the start of 2023 overlaid on Wrigley Field shows you how he could fit gorgeously with the Cubs. His power is increasingly wall-scraper stuff, but Wrigley is a good place for the balls he hits to scrape the top and the back side of the wall in left-center, rather than landing right against it on the field of play.

According to Mooney, the deal will be worth $6 million. That leaves the Cubs wiggle room to make a final addition, but Turner is the last piece they felt they truly needed. From here, their pursuits will be purely opportunistic.