Brice Turang’s Quantum Leap | FanGraphs Baseball

Pat Murphy is nominally in his first season as a full-time MLB supervisor, having beforehand helmed the Padres for a 96-game interim stint in 2015. But it surely’s not like he simply fell off the turnip truck; he began teaching so way back I’m unsure they even had vans or turnips again then. Murphy had been Craig Counsell’s bench coach for eight seasons when he acquired promoted this previous winter. When he took that job, he’d already been working in baseball for 33 seasons, all however considered one of them as both a minor league supervisor or faculty head coach.

Murphy’s seen some stuff.

About midway by way of spring coaching, when Murphy named Brice Turang his beginning second baseman, he accompanied the announcement with some glowing reward: “I believe this child’s gonna make a quantum leap… His swing choices will probably be higher, his contact will probably be higher, and his injury will come.”

On the time, it appeared like puffery, an try to construct confidence in a former first-round decide who’d been sub-replacement stage in his first main league season. Now, it appears like Murphy, endowed with the knowledge of 4 many years’ expertise, can predict the long run.

As a rookie, Turang constructed a popularity for good baserunning and protection, and deservedly so. He stole 26 luggage in 30 makes an attempt and graded out as two runs above common by Statcast’s Fielding Run Worth. However pace and protection are the form of qualities that get talked up extra when a participant — notably a starter at an up-the-middle place — is offering much less worth on the plate. First codified as Nichols’ Regulation of Catcher Protection, it’s a psychological placeholder that fills within the clean for: “This man couldn’t hit water if he fell out of a ship; absolutely there’s some motive he’s nonetheless within the lineup.”

As a result of, intending no undue disrespect to Turang, he was absolute cheeks final yr. This yr… nicely, I wrestle to consider a greater description than “quantum leap.”

So how did he obtain these positive aspects? Effectively, a few of these positive aspects are literal; Turang says he gained 20 kilos over the offseason.

Gaining weight & staying quick.

Brice Turang placed on 20 kilos over the offseason and already has six stolen bases in 4 video games this yr. #ThisIsMyCrew pic.twitter.com/JBrODvZOqJ

— Bally Sports activities Wisconsin (@BallySportWI) April 3, 2024

I additionally lived in Wisconsin for a yr in my mid-20s and… identical, dude. Shout out cheese curds and Madison’s Classic Brewing Co. The tough half is placing that weight on whereas retaining Ninety fifth-percentile dash pace, and this Turang has been capable of accomplish. He’s simply as quick as earlier than, and much more impactful on the bases; heading into Thursday’s motion, Turang is 12-for-12 in stolen base makes an attempt and main the league in baserunning worth.

That is nice information, and I’m positive it comes as an ideal reduction to the involved grandmothers of America that Turang is consuming extra. However what do you name a second baseman with plus-plus pace and a 60 wRC+? That’s proper: Somebody who in all probability ought to’ve gone to varsity and performed soccer. None of this issues if the second a part of Murphy’s prediction — higher swing choices, higher contact, extra injury — doesn’t come true.

Turang isn’t hitting the ball that a lot more durable in 2024. He’s at present 232nd out of 279 hitters with an EV50 of 97.0 mph; that’s up from 96.2 mph final yr, which was 247th out of 258. He’s within the seventeenth percentile for barrel price and the fifteenth for HardHit%.

However he’s picked off in all probability the 2 lowest-hanging items of fruit out there to a hitter.

First, he’s not getting completely dominated by four-seamers. When a prospect will get promoted to a brand new stage (often the large steps come at Double-A and the majors), one of many massive questions is often whether or not he can hit spin. That’s as a result of skilled pitchers throw unwholesome breaking balls, and also you by no means know for positive whether or not a hitter will sink or swim till he comes up in opposition to it. But additionally as a result of it’s often taken without any consideration {that a} skilled hitter at any stage can hit a fastball.

In 2023, Turang was 17 runs under common in opposition to fastballs. That was actually the worst mark in baseball. Second worst was Martín Maldonado, who’s by the way my psychological stand-in for the idea of an computerized out. Turang was, as arduous as it’s to imagine, much more computerized of an out in opposition to heaters.

This yr, he’s holding his personal. Now, this can be a pace man who struggled in opposition to fastballs, then improved after placing on weight. The apparent clarification is that he’s now not getting the bat knocked out of his fingers, proper? Effectively, that’s true, however solely to an extent.

The attention-popping quantity is that whiff price. The gamers who put up single-digit whiff charges in opposition to four-seamers are the elite contact hitters — Steven Kwan, Jeff McNeil, TJ Friedl — guys like that. And whereas Turang has been making extra contact, he’s been extra selective. (The 2 in all probability go hand in hand.) He’s dropped his first-pitch swing price virtually 9 factors yr to yr, and his chase price virtually six factors.

In 2023, Turang ran a first-pitch strike price of 66.9%, which was one of many 10 highest in baseball. This yr, that quantity is all the way down to an excellent 50%, which is the second-most excessive drop within the league. Beforehand, Turang was both placing the ball in play early — which didn’t work out that nicely for him — or beginning his at-bat within the gap. A extra affected person, selective Turang is getting significantly better outcomes, to say nothing of chopping his strikeout price by a 3rd.

I don’t count on Turang to maintain hitting nicely over .300 with energy. He’s not making that stage of contact, irrespective of how briskly he’s. He’s overperforming his anticipated stats throughout the board and his BABIP has jumped from .268 to .355. Can a quick left-handed groundball hitter maintain a BABIP like that? Positive, however I’m not going to leap to any conclusions after 4 weeks.

However there’s loads of precedent for a quick lefty groundball hitter to parlay excessive contact charges and weak contact right into a harmful offensive profile; possibly that is the beginning of Turang’s metamorphosis right into a poor man’s Friedl.

If Turang is even a mean hitter with that form of pace, that’s an above-average starter at second base. Prior to now 10 full seasons (2013 by way of 2023, excluding 2020), there have been 15 seasons by second basemen with a wRC+ between 90 and 110 with a constructive defensive WAR and 20 or extra stolen bases. The common WAR in these seasons is a hair beneath 3.3. Suppose Bryson Stott final yr, or Whit Merrifield in 2017, or Kolten Wong in 2019. That record features a couple Tommy Edman seasons as nicely.

Any staff would need a participant like that in its lineup. That a lot must be apparent, even to individuals who don’t have 40 years of teaching expertise to lean on.