Brice Turang's Hot Start Has Gone Ice-Cold Again. Now What?

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

After a strong spring training in which he swore he wasn't doing anything differently (but plainly was), Brice Turang came into the regular season on a tear. He had hits in each of his first 12 games, and at the end of the Brewers' series in San Francisco to open a road trip during the fourth week of April, he was hitting .346/.386/.452. In 115 plate appearances, he had 21 strikeouts, and though he'd only drawn seven walks and managed five extra-base hits, three of those five cleared fences, and Turang's general talent for generating well-struck singles seemed newly sustainable.

His exit velocities were way up. So, too, was his bat speed. Last year, Turang rarely nosed above the league average in terms of hitting the ball harder, but this year, he did it much more often than most batters, over a relatively long stretch.

As you can see, however, Turang has come back to Earth since then. His bat speed remains better (er, faster; Turang is among the good examples of the fact that not all added bat speed is a positive thing) even during the difficult month of May. He's also lifting the ball, if anything, more than ever—with his average launch angle rising steadily as the season has progressed.

Alas, he's been dramatically less productive as the season has progressed. Since that series in San Francisco, he's batting an atrocious .1183/.290/.247. In 107 trips to the plate, he's punched out 29 times (far more than his profile can bear), and has just four extra-base hits, three of them doubles. He's worked more walks (14 of them), but that hasn't made up for his lack of quality hits. Lately, in an attempt to put his revamped swing to its highest use, he's ratcheted up and is swinging more often, trying to avoid the deep counts where too many strikeouts take place. There was some evidence in Pittsburgh that he's getting closer, but right now, the results all sing an ugly song.

In the past, we would have had a hard time saying exactly what has changed from last year to this for Turang, and (more importantly) why the changes worked briefly, then ceased to do so. We can study video and see that he's doing things a bit differently, but Turang doesn't talk about what he's tweaked with particular clarity (largely, by choice), and most of our looks on TV come from the center-field camera, where some important things are lost. Now, however, we can visualize the whole operation of Turang's swing in a much different, more complete, more valuable way.

Firstly, Turang is far less spread-out in the box than he used to be, in terms of his setup. When he does swing, though, he's therefore striding much farther than he did in 2024. Here's what his stance and stride looked like in 2024.

And here's what he's gone to this year. His stride length, as best I can estimate it using the visualizations here, has gone from roughly 11.2 inches to 21.2.

That more exaggerated forward move means that even by the time his swing properly starts—when his front foot lands and his hands start the whip of the bat—there are some changes to his body position. Look at these side-by-side 3D renderings of his swing at that point, for each season.

These are composites—many swings, averaged out and rendered as one—but we can still glean a lot from them. He's holding his hands closer to his body, meaning he's more ready to attack the hitting zone directly. His weight isn't coming forward as much, yet. You can see that in his back foot, which had turned more last year than it has at the same point this year; and in the angle of his hips. He's more balanced, and better able to create some tilt throughout his frame.

Now, here's where he is at the point when his swing path gets on plane with the incoming pitch and starts to work uphill. The differences are even more obvious, now. Look at how, on the left, his hands are farther forward, and note (on the lefthand side of each screengrab) that his bat was going faster at this point in his swing last year than it is this year. However, by the time he makes contact, his swing is faster this year. That's because, as you can see, he has more left to his swing at the same point this year. His hands were farther forward last season. His weight was already shifting into his front leg. Look at how, in this year's image, he's still directly over his back thigh, which isn't leaning forward into the pitch. 

So, by the time Turang does get to the ball this year, he's both swinging faster and getting uphill more. His average attack angle is higher this year, meaning he's on time more consistently. Yet, his attack direction is much farther toward the opposite field. He's getting on plane deeper in his stance and swing, so he's up to a greater speed even at a deeper contact point. He's changed all of that this season, and none of it has really gone wrong during his fallow period this month.

Span	Bat Speed	Swing Tilt	Attack Angle	Attack Dir.	Contact Pt. (front edge of plate)	Contact Pt. (center of mass)
April 2024	66.8	29.8	-0.3	6.2	4.9	30.9
May 2024	66.3	29.2	2.1	5.3	7.7	31.8
June 2024	66.4	29.2	1.6	4.4	7.7	31.9
July 2024	66.5	29.3	1.9	4.4	7.5	32.8
August 2024	65.8	31.7	0.4	7.2	4.0	30.1
September 2024	65.5	32.2	0.5	9.6	2.4	28.7
April 2025	69.0	29.9	4.1	10.7	0.7	30.6
May 2025	69.3	29.6	5.7	9.4	-0.3	30.8

That's good news. It means that, for the most part, Turang's struggles stem from making some bad swing decisions. Because he can be in a stronger position at contact and have the bat up to speed a bit later, he doesn't have to do that. He can control the strike zone better, and he should get right back to having the great success he enjoyed over the first four weeks of the campaign. If he gets more comfortable with the unavoidable swing-and-miss in his new swing, Turang can bounce right back. His adjustments—in swing, stance and timing—are the right ones. This slump is just a manifestation of the growing pains that come with them.

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[rafa]

Now what?  Well, accept the fact that Turang is like about 65-70% of all MLB players, he's streaky.  

He's going to have an excellent month, an average one and a poor one to come at as a .260/.265 BA player with fantastic defense. 

[jay87shot]

I think Turang was probably hitting over .300 at this point of the season last year and struggled around the all-star break for a month or so. Hopefully he can just stay consistent, it seems like he is the best when he is looking to go the opposite way. His defense is starting to get back to gold glove levels as well especially after a little shaky 1st month (not bad, just not a last years standard), He is probably on pace for a borderline 5 WAR season again. Seeing how the left side of the IF looks it might be a good idea to see if we can get a long term deal done, I think at this point I am safe on saying he is a good bet to hit .250-.300 with high end baserunning and defense for the next 6+ years. There is some power starting to peak through however only 5 doubles 1/3 of the way through the year is worrisome, Something like Ke'Bryan Hayes 8/70 would seem like a deal at this point say 5, 7.5, 10 for the arby years and then like 3/42 (14 per) after that would come out to 6/64.5.

[endaround]

1 hour ago, jay87shot said:

I think Turang was probably hitting over .300 at this point of the season last year and struggled around the all-star break for a month or so. Hopefully he can just stay consistent, it seems like he is the best when he is looking to go the opposite way. His defense is starting to get back to gold glove levels as well especially after a little shaky 1st month (not bad, just not a last years standard), He is probably on pace for a borderline 5 WAR season again. Seeing how the left side of the IF looks it might be a good idea to see if we can get a long term deal done, I think at this point I am safe on saying he is a good bet to hit .250-.300 with high end baserunning and defense for the next 6+ years. There is some power starting to peak through however only 5 doubles 1/3 of the way through the year is worrisome, Something like Ke'Bryan Hayes 8/70 would seem like a deal at this point say 5, 7.5, 10 for the arby years and then like 3/42 (14 per) after that would come out to 6/64.5.

Turang collapsed in July and never recovered last year. 

[rafa]

Turang collapsed in July and never recovered last year. 

 

This comment is simply false, he hit .258 for September last year - when it's most important.  Moreover, he was 5/11 in the Mets playoffs series, that's over .400.

Yes, he was awful in July, subpar in August after being great from April - June.

[Jim French Stepstool]

I wonder if part of this is his added strength during the off-season leading to a little bit of a mind shift. I see him being, at times, a little more aggressive on 2-0 or 3-1 at inopportune times than I would personally like. Lessening the things you can impact a game with (speed, reaching base any way that you can, going oppo, the occasional bunt) in exchange for hitting 10-12 dingers instead of 5 isn't my idea of Turang at his best. His K total is almost half of last years' & we're only a third of the way through.

Also IIRC his slump sort of coincided with the upper-respiratory thing he picked up, and he only sat one game. Might've sapped him for a week or two.

[Jim French Stepstool]

4 hours ago, jay87shot said:

I think Turang was probably hitting over .300 at this point of the season last year and struggled around the all-star break for a month or so. Hopefully he can just stay consistent, it seems like he is the best when he is looking to go the opposite way. His defense is starting to get back to gold glove levels as well especially after a little shaky 1st month (not bad, just not a last years standard), He is probably on pace for a borderline 5 WAR season again. Seeing how the left side of the IF looks it might be a good idea to see if we can get a long term deal done, I think at this point I am safe on saying he is a good bet to hit .250-.300 with high end baserunning and defense for the next 6+ years. There is some power starting to peak through however only 5 doubles 1/3 of the way through the year is worrisome, Something like Ke'Bryan Hayes 8/70 would seem like a deal at this point say 5, 7.5, 10 for the arby years and then like 3/42 (14 per) after that would come out to 6/64.5.

Agree 100% with the bolded.

[Brian]

2 for 4 tonight with a walk, that's a good start. 

[endaround]

19 hours ago, rafa said:

Turang collapsed in July and never recovered last year. 

 

This comment is simply false, he hit .258 for September last year - when it's most important.  Moreover, he was 5/11 in the Mets playoffs series, that's over .400.

Yes, he was awful in July, subpar in August after being great from April - June.

He had a wRC+ of 71 in September after a 76 in August.  That is not good.

[sveumrules]

1 hour ago, endaround said:

He had a wRC+ of 71 in September after a 76 in August.  That is not good.

Sure those aren't good in a vacuum, but they certainly represent a recovery compared to the 18 wRC+ he put up in July of 2024 and also represented an improvement over the 61 wRC+ he put up during the 2023 season.

I don't think anyone realistically expected Turang to bounce all the way back to the 117 wRC+ he posted over the first three months of 2024.