We Have New Insight into the Conscious Tradeoffs Brice Turang Made in 2024

[Matthew Trueblood]

New data emerges from Baseball Savant as often as new confections emerged from Willy Wonka's factory, these days. On Wednesday, it was old new data—but old new stuff is still news. (Trust me.)

Image courtesy of © Orlando Ramirez-Imagn Images

Though it was initially too noisy and buggy to be published, the stat mavens who run Statcast and bring us the delightful toy set that is Baseball Savant smoothed out second-half bat-tracking data from 2023 recently and published those data Wednesday morning. It was a wonderful new set of numbers to get our hands on, because how fast a player swings (and how big the arc of their bat path is) tells us much about their efficacy at the plate. It's the next in a long and ongoing parade of numbers that capture not just how the ball moves, but how players move, and that brings us ever closer to being able to directly capture and quantify talent—even if there are some valuable things beyond talent, which will always need subjective consideration.

I was most excited to see what changes the data might unveil about Brice Turang, who famously changed out his bats for ones with big, fat knobs in 2024 and enjoyed (if not quite a quantum leap) a significant step forward at the plate in his second MLB season. Turang had one of the shortest swings in baseball last year, but as we know, that meant fairly little swing speed, too. He certainly traded some power potential for the ability to meet the ball squarely on a regular basis. Until now, though, we couldn't say for certain how new that was.

It was pretty new. In 2023, Turang averaged a swing speed of 68.5 miles per hour and a swing length of 6.5 feet. Those numbers were each below the league average, but neither was quite extreme. In 2024, as we know, that changed: his average swing speed was 66.2 MPH and his swing length came all the way down to 6.1 feet.

As you can see, there's a strong relationship between swing speed and swing length. A more appropriate regression curve to fit the data might bend downward at the left, where hitters seem to more concretely trade possible swing speed for the ability to shorten up and make contact, but even if you mentally adjust this linear regression to pull down its left tail, you'd see Turang beneath it.

In other words, he had a short swing relative to his swing speed, even in 2023. That's unsurprising. Even in a sometimes-brutal rookie season, Turang made contact at a high rate. When he came back in 2024, though, he had clearly rededicated himself to that very thing. He almost stopped trying to hit the ball hard altogether, favoring the ability not only to make contact, but to direct and aim it. He got that exactly right.

Despite not swinging nearly as hard, Turang had a higher average exit velocity and a higher hard-hit rate. He did lift the ball less, thanks to the flattening-out that came with his shorter swing, but his contact rate shot up. Being so direct to the ball allowed him to work the way you want a leadoff hitter to do, as he swung at the first pitch markedly less often but still attacked middle-middle offerings more often.

Losing bat speed is rarely good. Thoughtfully trading in bat speed for better control of the barrel can be much more encouraging. Few batters saw anywhere near as big a drop in bat speed as Turang's, and most of those seemed to be about age, injury, fatigue, or a wild-swinging power guy trying to cut down a massive strikeout rate. Some hitters, by contrast, significantly increased their swing speed; William Contreras boosted his from 73.8 to 74.7 MPH. That can be a surprisingly mixed blessing, itself, since faster swings are usually longer and less precise.

In Turang's case, cutting down the swing was smart, and it worked gorgeously. It would be great to see him tap into a bit more power in 2025, but if he continues to make contact at an elite rate, he can have success at this level of swing speed for a few years—even if it's more rooted in foot speed than in bat speed.

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[jesusoftheapes]

Luis Arráez is a name that comes to mind when I think of what Turang can be . I also think he can put up more homers than Luis A when he is all set .    He put on 15 lbs of upper body in 2024.   If he shows up next week with more stacked onto his frame I expect his power will jump up and triple his homerun numbers of 2024.    Brice is not a finished product and I still think he becomes the player he will be this year .  I think he can carry a .300 average when he is done building his body.  I think his bat will strike harder and harder each season until he gets into his 30s.   Turang is still becoming great and now with him being in the position he was born to play moving forward I believe we will see the best Brice Turang yet.