MESA, Ariz. — Justin Turner didn’t waste any time getting into Cactus League games.

Despite his veteran status, entering his 17th big-league season, Turner did not use that as a reason to ease his way into camp. After officially signing with the Cubs on a one-year, $6 million deal Feb. 20, Turner was in the spring lineup four days later. The 40-year-old has played in three of the Cubs’ last six games, even making the one-hour trip to Surprise on Friday to get at-bats.

The Cubs’ looming trip to Japan, where they open the regular season March 18-19 versus the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Tokyo Series, played a role in some urgency in getting game action sooner than later.

“It definitely speeds things up, and it’s a short runway for everyone,” Turner said. “It doesn’t matter how many years you’ve played. So jumping in and getting those ABs and getting that timing is important because in 15 days or whatever, we’re jumping on a bird and heading over there to play a real game.”

Most of Turner’s playing time is expected to come off the bench as a pinch hitter, designated hitter or first baseman, where he is the primary backup to Michael Busch. Turner has been taking grounders at third during camp to get his arm in shape “in case something happens and I have to go over there.” The Cubs ideally do not want to use Turner at third, where he made only 11 starts the last two years.

Turner’s greatest assets are his refined approach at the plate and leadership in the clubhouse. He posted a 114 OPS+ in 139 games between the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners last year.

“He absolutely loves hitting, what he’s done throughout his career with the swing change, him being around so many different really good hitters — he just loves to talk hitting,” hitting coach Dustin Kelly said. “He has a really easy kind of confident way about the way that he talks to players.

“And it sounds cliché, but he really is almost like another hitting coach in there. Obviously, he does all of his work and has a really good feel for what he’s trying to do, but he’s looking to try and help and give information and do whatever he can for our guys.”

The Cubs aren’t rushing any decision on whether Shaw will make the trip to Japan and be ready to play in the first two games.

An early-camp left oblique injury has kept Shaw out of games, but the third baseman remains on track to make his Cactus League debut Sunday. That would leave only eight more spring games before the team departs for Tokyo after their March 11 game. Shaw will get days off within that span as he properly builds up to avoid reaggravating his oblique, which can turn into a nagging injury if not handled properly

“Unfortunately, the oblique (injuries) are pretty common nowadays, especially with hitters and guys that are wound pretty tight, so we’ve had some history with them, obviously Seiya (Suzuki) had one a couple years ago,” Kelly said. “We have a pretty good idea of how we structure guys’ work. But it’s really up to them at the end of the day of, like, how does it feel?

“There’s a ton of communication, and if something does feel a little bit off, we’re not hesitant to just shut it down. We haven’t had that with him yet, so that’s been good.”

Shaw is in an awesome spot, Kelly said, with where they are trying to get him with his timing and swing. The Cubs aren’t making any declarations either way about how the next 1½ weeks will play out, though they continue not to rule out Shaw being ready.

“We’ve got to make quicker decisions (because of Japan),” manager Craig Counsell said Friday. “But we have time still.”

His offseason hernia surgery, however, provided some added context for why his offensive production dipped in 2024, especially his power numbers. Swanson’s .390 slugging percentage last season was the second worst of his career, trailing only his first full major-league season in 2017.

“Some of the swing things that we saw with him last year that he kind of struggled with, I think a lot of it had to do with the injury, just the way that he wasn’t able to hold his back side,” Kelly said. “We kind of kind of put Band-Aids, for lack of a better term, on some of that stuff to just make sure that he was able to to kind of get through and make the swing.

“But this offseason, with the health and everything, he’s been in a really good spot, and we’re starting to see the setup, the gather and the forward move, look a lot more like what it did at the end of ’21 and ’22.”

Swanson’s two highest single-season home run marks came in 2021 (27) and 2022 (25) with the Atlanta Braves while recording a 106 OPS+, .263 average and .320 on-base percentage — figures that would all surpass those numbers from a year ago. A return to those years of production would provide a big boost to a Cubs lineup that is top-heavy and features some question marks surrounding Busch, Miguel Amaya and Pete Crow-Armstrong and their ability to replicate last year’s success.

Amaya and Crow-Armstrong, in particular, must prove their hot final two months of the season weren’t a fluke.

“Amaya is obviously offensively so far he’s off to a really good start,” Kelly said. “Pete’s been doing just fine. He’s barreled some balls. … That low line drive to left center is a really good spot for him. And we know that he can pull balls and hit balls really far, but if he’s able to drive that ball, kind of the low part of that left-center-field gap, he’s in a good spot.”

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