Brice Turang’s New Groove | FanGraphs Baseball

I used to be doing a little analysis on hitting the ball within the air the opposite approach once I got here throughout this putting leaderboard:

The 5 guys who hit the ball hardest the opposite approach once they raise it? 4 huge sluggers and Brice Turang. I used to be overjoyed by this end result at first. I wished to discover a hitter who will get to extra energy to the other area than to the pull facet. If Turang is hitting the ball this arduous to the other facet, arduous sufficient to quantity among the many high sluggers within the sport, absolutely it’s due to some explicit function of his swing that manifests solely to the other area. Let’s simply add in pull-side common exit velocity and…

Wait, what the?! Turang hits the ball as arduous as Alonso? He has extra pull energy than Kurtz? This deserves additional investigation. Fortunately, FanGraphs has already been throughout it. Esteban Rivera wrote about Turang’s elevated bat pace all the best way again in Might. Michael Baumann highlighted Turang as a possible elevate-and-celebrate candidate. Over at Baseball Prospectus, Timothy Jackson famous that Turang’s bat pace beneficial properties have caught. The truth is, his 4.2-mph enhance in common swing pace is the most important enchancment within the sport. All these beneficial properties have introduced his swing pace all the best way as much as… the twenty second percentile. Huh? The blokes on that leaderboard with him are within the 94th, 94th, 98th, and 92nd percentiles, respectively. Clearly, swinging more durable can’t be the one rationalization for Turang’s breakout efficiency. Let’s go slightly deeper than “bat sooner ball go far,” we could?

Look, I’m not going to lie: “Bat sooner ball go far” is quite a lot of it. Turang’s 2024 season was a caricature of a slap hitter, surprisingly out of line along with his scouting report coming into the league (45 uncooked energy on the 20-80 scale). His bat pace declined by greater than two miles an hour from 2023, whereas his contact charge surged from 82.3% to 87.9%. In percentile phrases, he went from the seventieth percentile in making contact to the 97th. He began swinging extra slowly in an effort to come up empty much less incessantly.

That change labored out precisely as deliberate. Turang posted a swinging strike charge decrease than he had in any yr of the minors. His contact charge had by no means been so excessive. He struck out solely 17% of the time, a decline of 4 proportion factors from 2023, and he didn’t begin chasing overly a lot both.

Only one downside: The general outcomes have been poor. He hit a ton of grounders (2.01 GB/FB ratio, third highest within the majors) and did virtually no injury to the pull facet. The beneficial properties in touch charge didn’t make up for that. Positive, 17% is a better-than-average strikeout charge, however it’s nonetheless a lot increased than what we see from guys like Steven Kwan and Luis Arraez, who reside within the single digits. That’s how you find yourself with an 88 wRC+ regardless of making a lot contact.

With the data that Turang purposefully dialed issues down final yr in hand, his 2025 modifications begin to make extra sense. To borrow from Esteban’s article, check out Turang’s swing pace distribution in every of the previous three years:

The largest change is that the entire distribution has shifted proper, however the second-biggest change is that he has reduce out a ton of his weaker swings. Consider it this manner: When a hitter sees one thing middle-middle whereas forward within the depend, they need to most likely take an enormous hack. There’s no profit to making an attempt to foul a type of pitches off or punch it on the bottom the opposite approach; it’s the most effective alternatives a hitter goes to get to do injury, and it’s definitely worth the danger of whiffing as a result of swinging and lacking gained’t end in a strikeout.

In 2023, Turang appropriately swung arduous at these ones. He took 106 such swings, and solely 9 have been at 65 mph or slower, what I’m deeming a “gradual swing.” That gave him a slow-swing charge of 8.5% when forward within the depend and going through a grooved pitch. The league charge is about 4%, however it’s hardly stunning to see Turang a bit increased than common right here; even along with his huge swing pace beneficial properties in 2025, he has under common bat pace. That was a standard quantity, in different phrases.

In 2024, Turang modified his plan utterly. His slow-swing charge skyrocketed to 23.6% in these conditions. That’s woeful. Solely 5 hitters took gradual swings at crushable pitches in good counts extra incessantly: Nicky Lopez, Arraez, Kwan, Justin Turner, and Nolan Schanuel. You actually don’t need to be in that group in the event you may also help it – that’s “higher have outlier bat-to-ball abilities to stay within the majors” territory. It’s no shock that Turang wasn’t lighting the world on hearth in 2024; he was purposefully sacrificing energy for contact even in conditions the place that trade-off made no sense.

This yr, Turang is all the way down to a 4.5% slow-swing charge in these eventualities. In different phrases, he’s accurately adapting to the scenario. He’s additionally lengthened his swing significantly in these counts – from 6.5 toes on common to 7.3 toes – whereas his fast-swing charge (75 mph or more durable) has exploded from 4% to 21%. That is Baseball 101: In one of the best spots to promote out for injury, he’s doing precisely that.

OK, so Turang has made the logical determination to assault extra aggressively when he has the possibility, eschew extreme contact-seeking (his 80.8% contact charge is above common however not almost as excessive as his 2024 outcomes), and settle for further strikeouts in change for manufacturing on contact. That’s all effectively and good – it’s a change I’m positive he and the Brewers have labored on collectively, and one which makes excellent sense along with his ability set. We nonetheless want to clarify why he’s hitting the ball like Alonso, although.

The important thing to Turang’s elite batted ball high quality comes all the way down to physics. How arduous you hit the ball is usually about three issues: How briskly the ball is transferring, how briskly the bat is transferring, and the way cleanly the bat’s momentum transfers to the ball. (The bat’s weight issues too, however let’s maintain this straightforward for now.) That is intuitive; for a given bat pace and ball pace, the ball will fly loads more durable if the hitter catches it sq. than in the event that they strike a glancing blow. Statcast measures this as one thing known as “squared-up charge,” which is the proportion of batted balls the place the collision between bat and ball produces an exit velocity of not less than 80% of the theoretical most.

This explicit ability is Turang’s greatest. Fantastic, possibly not his greatest general ability – he’s an elite baserunner and spectacular defender – however it’s his greatest ability on the plate. Don’t consider me? Take a look at his percentile scores for every ability Statcast measures:

I feel that performed a giant half in Turang’s determination to work as a slap hitter final yr. Going the Arraez route is a believable strategy to flip Turang’s below-average bat pace and wonderful bat management into offensive manufacturing. However there was an enormous downside along with his alternative: A flat swing meant that he wasn’t benefiting from squared-up contact within the air. In 2024, solely 65% of his elevated contact was squared up; that’s virtually precisely league common. Turang was within the 83rd percentile for squared-up charge, and but he wasn’t getting the profit the place further exit velocity issues most. Smash a grounder arduous, and also you may acquire a single. Smash a fly ball, and also you get to put on a foolish hat within the dugout.

Why wasn’t he making robust contact within the air? His common contact level got here with the bat tilted upward by one diploma. That was actually the flattest swing in baseball final yr; league common is 10 levels. Make contact with the bat so flat, and your cleanest strikes will come whenever you hit the ball at a low angle. Think about the sort of collision that makes a flat bat path put the ball within the air, and you’ll perceive why Turang had bother squaring up his aerial contact regardless of wonderful bat management.

This yr, he’s redone his swing a couple of methods. He’s stepped again, along with his again foot 5 inches deeper within the field and his contact level 4 inches again as effectively, which lets him take a barely longer, barely sooner swing. Extra importantly, he’s as much as a seven-degree assault angle on common, the higher to pair his cleanest contact with the balls that profit most from being cleanly struck. This yr, 81% of his elevated contact has been squared up. Between these modifications and the aforementioned removing of weak swings, he’s making contact with a sooner bat, and that sooner bat is transferring extra of its vitality to line drives and fly balls. It’s value him some swing and miss, however the trade-off nonetheless works out massively in his favor.

Right here’s what that appears like in a sport:

That swing was 78 mph and tilted upward at 10 levels on the level of contact. That’s what you’re presupposed to do when Andrew Heaney throws you an 89-mph sinker down the center in a 3-1 depend. Turang has hardly crushed each such pitch, however it’s not for a scarcity of making an attempt. The end result? A outstanding transformation in his means to do injury. Listed below are some related statistics for contact over the guts of the plate earlier than two strikes, what I consider as do-damage territory:

You possibly can consider this because the batter’s time to shine. While you’re up within the depend, get a pitch to hit, and resolve to swing, it’s go time. These are splendid hitting circumstances. Turang’s numbers in 2023 and 2024 have been, in a phrase, atrocious. Now he’s bopping. Take a look at it when it comes to run worth on swings in these do-damage conditions. The desk under folds in foul balls, whiffs, and manufacturing on contact:

These are run values relative to league common in every depend, so a detrimental quantity means much less manufacturing than the common main league hitter. In different phrases, Turang was leaving an absolute pile of worth on the desk in a few of the greatest circumstances to hit. Each time he took a gradual swing at a crushable pitch in a superb depend, he was bailing the opposing pitcher out. Now he’s doing it far much less typically. Pretty much as good as huge league pitchers are as of late, you higher get them once they’re at a drawback, and now Turang has rebuilt his sport round doing simply that.

The very best half about this modification? It appears completely sustainable to me. Now, will he maintain squaring up a lot of his elevated contact? In all probability not, if solely as a result of he’s third in baseball in air squared-up charge after by no means having approached these heights earlier than. Certainly, “this man gained’t maintain placing up numbers akin to Shohei Ohtani” is a good wager to make about virtually everybody.

That’s OK, although. Turang doesn’t have to maintain hitting like this to be an ideal participant. Actually, he could be a borderline All-Star yearly if he have been simply a median hitter due to his protection and baserunning, and he is perhaps fairly be a superb hitter. Final yr, his method held him again; now it’s boosting him, and he seems to be on a little bit of a sizzling streak as effectively, all the time an ideal mixture. He’s been one of the best participant on one of the best crew this yr, and the modifications he’s made beneath the hood counsel that it’s no fluke.