Considered the “consensus top high school righthander available” by Baseball America back in 2009, Jacob Turner was drafted ninth overall by the Tigers out of Westminster Christian Academy in Missouri. He stood at 6’5″, 210 lbs and touched 98 with his fastball. Adviser Scott Boras was able to get the 18-year-old Turner a $5.5MM Major League contract, most of which came in the form of a signing bonus.
After two years in the minors, MLB.com ranked Turner the 15th prospect in the game, ahead of future stars such as Nolan Arenado, Zack Wheeler, and Francisco Lindor. Turner made his MLB debut at the age of 20, pitching well against the Angels for Jim Leyland’s Tigers. At that point in late 2011, Turner profiled as a future number two or three starter in the Majors.
The following year, Turner picked up his first big league win on July 22nd against the White Sox. The 2012 Tigers would go on to win the pennant, but they’d do so without Turner. The day after that first career W, they sent him packing to the Marlins for more immediate help in the form of Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante.
By late May 2013, Turner had secured a spot in a Marlins rotation that also featured Jose Fernandez, Tom Koehler, Ricky Nolasco, Nathan Eovaldi, and Henderson Alvarez. Turner’s age-22 season would turn out to be his best, as he put together 20 starts with a 3.74 ERA that year.
Things took a turn in 2014, as Turner lost both his rotation and 40-man roster spots with the Marlins, joining the Cubs on a waiver claim. An elbow injury spoiled Turner’s 2015 season, which ended in a crosstown waiver claim by the White Sox. Turner went on to a stint with the Nationals, followed by returns to the Marlins and Tigers. For the 2019 season, Turner moved to KBO’s Kia Tigers.
Turner’s time in MLB was over before his 30th birthday, certainly not the career some expected of him back when he was starring in high school and the low minors. But he still competed for parts of seven seasons in the bigs, pitching 369 innings and making 56 starts. The 22-year-old kid was pretty darn good in the Majors in 2013, going at least seven innings five different times that year. One career highlight: a one-run, complete game victory over the Padres that year. Across those seven seasons, Turner punched out many of the game’s stars, including Bryce Harper, Buster Posey, Carlos Beltran, Jose Bautista, Nolan Arenado, David Wright, and Freddie Freeman.
Still only 31 years old, Turner now runs a company that “helps educate athletes around money and helps them be good stewards of the money earned in their careers,” as he puts it. He’s on Twitter @TheSuddenWealth, where he posted a thread last summer about his experiences that ended up going viral. Jacob notes that people can DM him on Twitter to get in touch, and you can view his website here.
Jacob took questions from MLBTR readers earlier today. Click here to read the transcript!
If you’re a current or former MLB player, we’d love to have you for a chat with our readers! It’s a great way to interact with fans for an hour, and you get to choose which questions you publish. Click here to contact us.
What a sad story
Who Cancelled? Was Jonny Gomes busy or something?
Great chat. Jacob is clearly very intelligent compared to most players. I can see why he’s been able to develop a successful financial practice to help athletes. Worth a Twitter follow.
…and, yes, go check out his thread at the top of his Twitter account about being an instant millionaire and what follows.
Cool chat but I was hoping for more stock picks.
Does anyone else find the “proof of life” photos with the players holding up a piece of paper with MLBTR written on it kinda weird?
Haha…basically I’m stealing the idea from Reddit AMAs. I actually think it’s fun to see what the guys look like currently.
We didn’t really need to verify Jacob’s identity because he messaged us through his Twitter account, but most players email us and I like to be sure it’s really them.
Never heard of Reddit have you? It’s from the AMA they do with celebrities and other famous people or big people in certain fields.
These are the type of pictures girls ask me to send them to prove I’m not catfishing.
Was at a funeral 🙁 and couldn’t make the chat. But I have a fun Jacob Turner story.
I was at a Toledo Mud Hens game with my wife in 2018 and Jacob was the starter. We were in the third row near the home dugout. That’s what $16 gets you in the minors! After the game, Turner came over and kissed the woman in the first row and hugged two kids. It was his family. You sometimes forget that these are real young men, not automatons. To them, he was dad and Fifth Third Field was his office.
Fifth third is no Ned Skeldon, but there is definitely something special about the intimacy and accessibility of small ball parks. Oh how we love them Hens!
I really liked his comment about finding a way for more young kids to be able to interact with the players. In my opinion, NOTHING can cement a love of baseball (or any other sport, I imagine) more than getting to meet one of your heroes. I’ve been on both sides of that, as a boy learning and falling in love with the game and as an all-growed-up man watching kids with wild eyes get to shake hands with a real ballplayer. It’s always a larger-than-life experience.
Agree 100%. When my son was five, Kyle Schwarber said a few words to him during spring training, and we still talk about it seven years later. Definitely contributed to his baseball fandom. Kyle also signed a baseball card for him, but if that’s the hang-up for players, it would’ve been great without it as well. I think players could do so much more in this regard. Imagine if each player took 30 minutes per game to interact with fans before or after.
I also think young fans age 4-6 don’t know the different players too much, so the team could send out its lesser-knowns and a large impact could still be made.
Tim, when I was a kid (1970s), players would shag balls and then come over to the stands and sign autographs for a few minutes. I still have many of them! Do you think the players believe they are too important to interact with their customers or why do you think they’ve totally stopped interacting with fans at games? And it isn’t just baseball, it is the other sports as well.
I wasn’t alive in the 70s, so it’s hard for me to make a comparison there.
I do think players interact with the fans, currently. I see at least some level of it every time I attend a game. It just feels like it’s a handful of players doing it, and for a pretty short period of time.
I honestly don’t know why it doesn’t happen more. Perhaps it needs to be on more of an institutional level, a concerted effort by MLB and each team to get the players to do more. Or even put into a contract?
I also think that most of the fan-player interaction I’ve seen is with the fans in the expensive/close seats. It’d be cool if each ticket was entered into a lottery, and random people got pre-game texts to come to the field and meet a player. Adults would be able to transfer theirs to children.
Keep in mind that in the ‘70s the sports memorabilia business wasn’t the industry it is today. Star players can get a lot of money per signature at shows. Alternatively, some of the fans asking for autographs are looking to flip them on eBay. Much more complicated than back in the day.
I was fortunate to be able to take in some Padres games at PetCo sitting behind the Pads dugout. Josh Barfield was great with fans. Adrian Gonzalez was awful. Acted like baseballs were bought and paid for out of his salary. Lol. Barfield was great and interacted with fans coming off the field after the last out. Gonzalez acted like fans didn’t exist
Here’s another feel-good for you. I was living in Orlando where the Braves do their spring training. I don’t even remember the opponent, but it was a Tuesday afternoon game. I went by myself; next to me was a guy in a zillion dollar suit with TWO phones constantly going and his maybe 8 year old son. Dad (?) had no time for the kid, who had a Chipper Jones shirt and hat and glove and everything. Chipper went to sign autographs and the kid went crazy. Dad had no interest, so I said I’d be happy to supervise the kid. Fortunately, the young man got Chipper’s autograph and a big smile and handshake, and blurted out, “GET ME A HIT, CHIPPER!” Chipper said he’d try and asked where we were sitting. First at bat, Chipper drilled a double off the center field wall, turned around, pointed to the approximate area where we were sitting and gave a thumbs up. My brand new friend shrieked, “CHIPPER ROCKS!” at the top of his lungs. I’m willing to bet the house that he’s still a Braves fan.
I remember a story about a BB card show and Brooks Robinson. A father was getting his autograph for his son, waiting in the car because he was sick. Brooks leaves the room, goes outside to sign something for the kid and talked with him a few minutes. That’s gotta be something you remember forever.