Jacob Turner DFA: Examining the downfall of Jacob Turner

When the dawning of a new era for the Miami Marlins started during the beginning of the 2013 season, this player was looked at as one of the leaders. Since his arrival during the summer of 2009, it seemed that Jacob Turner had future success within grasp of his fingertips. While success is far from guaranteed for young starting pitchers, the right-handed Turner entered his career with high expectations, after being selected by Detroit with the ninth pick in that year's amateur draft.

Five years later, that amount of hope and promise has vanished after the Marlins designated Jacob Turner for assignment. While this move has seemed to have been anticipated for a while, it's still a shock to see his value drop to the level that's currently at.

Perhaps the main reason behind his continued decline can be pointed to two separate reasons: Lack of consistency and inability to keep the ball in the strike zone. Even though that second issue seemed to be solved during the current season (2.64 BB/9 in 2014 compared to 4.12 in 2013), Turner has failed to eclipse that barrier of being a mediocre to below-average piece on an otherwise solid rotation.

While the diminishing of his walk rate would seem to be looked at as a potential positive for Turner, a handful of other factors would probably point you into a completely different direction. A prime example of that would be how opposing batters continue to tee off on him on a consistent basis. During the 2014 season, Turner allowed the opposing batters to have an awful .323/.376/.488 split line, which showcases the consistency that they had against the right-handed starter (Editor's note: "Consistency" is often used as a synonym for "being good," and I think that's the case here. The batting line shows that hitters beat him up, not that they were "consistent" per se. -MJ)

As that aforementioned starting core started to meld a solid unit for the future behind the arms of Jose Fernandez, Henderson Alvarez, Nathan Eovaldi, and potentially Andrew Heaney, the once cherished Turner was ultimately pushed to the side for more reliable pitching options. With the Marlins trying to slowly inch their way towards reaching that .500 plateau, those consistent arms are more valuable than the potential that Turner may have in the future.

While Turner still can potentially turn into the player that many expected him to be, he could still turn into a valuable part of a certain team's rotation. Despite his struggles to keep the ball inside the strike zone, Turner does possess a solid array of pitches from different variations of a fastball to a developing changeup and curveball. Even though he probably won't turn into the second coming of Yordano Ventura or Garrett Richards, Turner might still have a chance to turn into a valuable asset if he's able to consistently able to keep those array of pitches inside the strike zone.