DUNEDIN, Fla. – Looking back, Justin Turner places the date around 2016. His friend and teammate A.J. Ellis had been traded from the Dodgers to the Phillies, and as he’d left, Ellis had told Turner it was time for him to take on a bigger leadership role within the Los Angeles clubhouse.
“Hey, man,” Ellis told Turner, “This is your team now.”
The message resonated with Turner, then 31 and in his eighth big-league season. It was at that time that he felt truly comfortable stepping up as a leader on the Dodgers.
“Him saying that when he’d been around for a long time, it kind of felt like, ‘oh, I’ve got to grow up,’” Turner recalled in an interview with Sportsnet. “I can’t just sit back and do my thing. I’m gonna have to take on some more responsibility.”
In the seven seasons since, there’s been little doubt as to Turner’s standing in a big-league locker room. Sometimes, he’s stayed quiet. Other times he’s spoken up. And while there’s no way to predict how the coming season unfolds, it’s clear Turner’s earning the right to speak up with his new team, too.
“Student of the game,” manager John Schneider said of Turner. “But I think what’s allowed him to succeed is he takes care of himself physically and understands what he needs to do every day. He’s got a plan with everything he does, whether it’s the way he’s taking BP, the way he’s hitting in the cage or his at-bats. Just a baseball player, you know? He’s always open to new ideas, and he likes when guys are curious like he is.”
On a recent morning at the Blue Jays’ Player Development Complex in Dunedin, Fla., Turner spent some time answering my questions about leadership – what it looks like, why it matters and how morale evolves in the course of a season. Here’s how the conversation unfolded:
Sportsnet: You’ve been asked about leadership a lot, and I think it’s an interesting topic, but it can also get pretty cliched pretty fast, so I’d like to get a bit more granular with it. What do you think are the actual attributes of a good leader in baseball?
Justin Turner: I think just respect. I think it’s a two-way street of respecting your teammates and respecting what they’re doing and what they’re trying to accomplish. And then, whatever you’re saying, whatever you’re preaching, you’ve got to make sure you’re following through on that yourself. Otherwise, you lose that respect. Once you lose that respect, you’ve lost everything. So it’s not so much about it being ‘rah-rah’ or rallying the troops, or big meetings or taking a thousand ground balls. It’s about relationships and really, it just comes down to respect. It’s not demanding respect because I’m older. It’s a mutual two-way street. I’ve got to respect you no matter what part of your career you’re in if I want you to respect me.
SN: That makes sense for sure. So, okay, you mentioned the team meetings thing, and I think it’s easy from afar to think, ‘Okay, it’s all about these moments you see in a movie where someone’s, like, screaming in a locker room.’ How often in the course of your career have those types of moments happened?
JT: I’ve done my fair share of it, but I don’t like doing it just to do it. There’s a time and a place. I’m not a big meeting guy, but I’ve had my fair share of talks.
SN: How often? Is that twice a year? Or what?
JT: I just don’t think you can put a number on it.
SN: So how do you know when the time is for that sort of conversation?
JT: You don’t. But sometimes there’s just a message that you want to send not to just one person. Obviously (a personal message) is handled differently. You have that (conversation) one on one. But maybe there’s a message you want to send to the whole group. And that’s probably when it when it happens.
SN: Right. So who are some of the best leaders or tone-setters that you’ve played with?
JT: Oh, man, David Wright in New York was really good. The Dodgers were different just because of the players, you know. It was, you know, it was MVPs and Cy Youngs everywhere. And everyone carried themselves (professionally), so I don’t think there was a whole lot of ‘stand up in front of the room and grandstand’ because of everyone that was in the room, basically.
But David, off the top of my head, was probably the best. We had a young group of guys in New York, and he was the older guy, and he was the guy that stood in front of his locker and did media every single day to take the pressure off the young guys. He was the guy that made the rules and held everyone accountable. So, he was probably the best at it.
SN: And then how long into your career did it take for you to get to the point that you feel like, ‘Hey, I have built up enough authority or experience to speak to the group in that way’?
JT: I don’t know what year it was. Probably when A.J. Ellis got traded (in 2016), and he came up to me and was like, ‘Hey, man, this is your team now.’ And that was that was tough because, you know, he and I had always had a lot of conversations about, the state of the union, the state of the team. And we had lots of conversations in the weight room and on planes, and so when he was, you know, traded to the Phillies, that was the guy that I’d always bounced stuff off of and had these conversations with. So, I don’t know, I think him saying that when he’d been around for a long time, it kind of felt like, ‘oh, like I got to grow up.’ I can’t just sit back and do my thing. I’m gonna have to take on some more responsibility.
But I don’t think it was ever forced. I don’t think I ever, you know, got out of character trying to do it. And I think that’s important for guys, young stars who are coming up who want to be leaders. You can’t let it cost what you do on the field to go out of your way to do something else. So it’s got to come naturally.”
SN: Right. So stop me if I’m way off on this. Could morale shift a lot in the course of the season for a baseball team? Because I’m thinking in, like, a normal workplace, the morale will shift, right? It can be really good at one point and then it’s not as great. Would that apply in a baseball clubhouse?
JT: I think it does happen all the time. All the time. There’s highs, there’s lows. The best teams that I’ve been a part of literally know how to hit the reset button and know how to show up every day and take it one game at a time. And then you show up today to figure out how to win today. Yeah. And then you worry about tomorrow tomorrow. The best teams that I’ve been on, have been really good at hitting the reset button, flushing whatever happened good or bad and moving on to the next day.
SN: Okay. And when people say one day at a time, it sounds a little cliche, obviously, but there’s truth to it, too. And like, it would seem to me that it’s almost like another way of saying that this a good team might have almost a maturity to it, where it’s like they can just put (past struggles) aside.
JT: Right, it checks that morale, right? That ebb and flow of the morale when you go about it one day at a time. It kind of gives it the Heisman, you know (here Turner gestures as though fending off a blocker). It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. We have a game that we have a chance to win today, so the morale is high every single day because you have an opportunity to win every single day.
SN: As you guys start this year, is it just like diving in? It’s such a long season, you have no way of knowing what it’s going to be like in July. Do you just have to take that plunge and just trust?
JT: I mean, it’s important to realize that games on March 29th are just as important as the game on September 29th. You can’t just go in and see what happens early and then figure out what we’re going to do. You’ve got to go in and play the game to win from day one because those games are important and those games do affect what happens in September. Now, I’m not saying you can’t have a bad start and then turn your season around and get hot. That happens all the time. But I think if you start from the beginning, you don’t have to rely on a turnaround. You can just play consistent baseball across the board and be in a good position in September to do something special.