Dodgers: Extremely annoying rival emerging in Justin Turner competition

The Los Angeles Dodgers have always been the favorites for Justin Turner, much like the Yankees were always the favorites for DJ LeMahieu … until the Blue Jays, Mets, and, yes, the Dodgers began to circle.

So now the only question is this: how will this process wrap up? Like LeMahieu’s, with the two fated sides eventually agreeing on a two-year deal that always made sense? Or like the Trevor Bauer talks, when they printed up the Mets t-shirts, only to watch the Dodgers’ interest be revealed as legitimate at the buzzer?

In recent weeks, the Brewers have emerged as one of the other “finalists” for Turner, a threat that we haven’t exactly taken seriously. After all, Milwaukee is a non-contender that isn’t exactly motivated to spend recklessly on an aging third baseman.

But on Tuesday, we first heard a natural connection made between the Mets — Turner’s former team — and the free agent slugger, and that’s the kind of franchise that makes us nervous.

The Mets would like to eat the Dodgers’ bacon by signing Justin Turner.

Is this…is this what Yankees fans felt like when the Dodgers first started lurking in the LeMahieu talks?

The dreaded winter of 2020-21 isn’t exactly over yet, but many of the natural reunions have taken place, sans Turner’s. LeMahieu is back in the Bronx. Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright have rejoined the Cardinals after paddling around in the market.

But Turner still sits largely idle. And though the tweet above insinuates he could return to Hollywood on a two-year deal, do we have any indication the player himself will be inclined to accept that? We’ve seen rumors of demands up to a four-year contract thus far, and there hasn’t been any indication of settling from Turner’s side.

While “Turner to the Brewers” is a pipe dream nobody wants, perhaps the “reunion” that all of us were discounting was the third baseman’s return to the Mets, the first franchise with which he made a real big league impact, and a genuine contender for both the NL East and the league pennant.

We’ve heard plenty this week about the overload of Mets-related irons that still remain in the fire.

Could a Turner signing, followed by some sort of JD Davis or Dom Smith trade, be a realistic possibility?

Odds are this concludes the way LA’s chase of LeMahieu did — with the natural order of operations eventually winning out. But these are by far the diciest times of the process so far.

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