All the Little Changes Adding Up to Big Things for Brewers' Brice Turang

The Brewers are off to a 5-5 start this season. That sounds tame, but it’s fair to say it has been a rollercoaster already, thanks to injuries, shutouts, and being on the wrong side of blowouts. Despite all this, there has been one batter who has been constantly producing: Brice Turang.

Where we have seen .500 baseball from the Crew in the first three series of the season, Turang has gotten a hit in every single game. In 43 plate appearances, Turang is hitting .325/.349/.500, with two home runs and six RBIs. Sure, it’s a small sample, but it’s an interesting uptick in numbers from his .254 batting average from last season.

Turang is entering his third season in the league, and as he has gotten more experience in the bigs, he’s shown slight improvements in his swings and approach. Firstly, he's setting up differently in the batter's box: deeper (relative to home plate), farther off the inside edge, and more open, ready to attack the ball and extend his arms more at contact.

Bat speed has been an issue since his rookie season. A lack of swing speed doesn’t bode well for hitters who are trying to get ahead of a mid-90s fastball—not because they can't catch up to that heat itself, but because the slower one's swing, the more one has to time to the fastball and start early, compromising the ability to adjust to other offerings. The bat speed is up significantly this spring, and Turang has used that to his advantage, catching the ball deeper but still making solid contact. Still, this is far from merely a bat-speed thing. He's still below-average in that regard.

The stance adjustments have also made Turang a little more versatile in terms of where he directs his hard contact. In 2024, he was driving the ball almost solely toward the right side of the field. So far this year, he's been hitting it up the middle.

These aren’t just bloopers and lucky hits, either. Turang has been pounding the ball at an average 94 MPH exit velocity. In comparison, he only averaged 87 MPH last year, and the big-league average sits at around 88 MPH.

So, what exactly has changed about Turang and his swing? Moving back in the batter’s box doesn’t exactly change bat speed, and it shouldn’t change exit velocity either. Is he doing anything different at the plate?

In 2024, he was patient at the plate striking out at a 17% rate. He wasn’t walking much, but he wasn’t striking out as much either. His whiff rate was well below average (13.8%), and he laid off the ball down below the zone. He was successful with pitches in the top of the zone, and would swing at those regularly.

In 2025, he's taking a new tack. Turang has been swinging a lot more, making contact with pitches on the inside part of the plate. He has been swinging and missing a lot more often, especially on the low outside part of the plate. Again, this is only based off the first 10 games of a 162-game season. so expect some stats to regress. So far, though, it looks like he's going after pitches he believes he can blast—not just swinging faster and trading some contact for that bat speed, but attacking when he sees something he can put the barrel on.

2024:

2025:

These are all small changes that have helped Turang to start the 2025 season. However, he swore repeatedly during spring training that he wasn't doing anything differently, so much of this could be mental. It might be as much about comfort as about conscious approach or mechanical work.

Turang is in his third season with the parent club. He's now seen a thing or two, he’s gaining muscle, and he’s entering his prime years as a baseball player. At 25 years old, believe it or not, he is the longest-tenured Brewers infielder and he still has four more seasons of club control.

It’s crazy to think that I was calling him potential trade bait entering the 2024 season—someone who might be on the bubble of making the roster. Now, he looks like the player the Brewers were hoping to see back in 2018 when they drafted him with the 21st overall selection.

If he can keep up with this newfound confidence and his improved approach at the plate, then we might just see a dynamic middle infield for years to come.