The Anchor of the League's Best Defense, Brice Turang Turned Out Not to Need a Quantum Leap

The more you watch Brice Turang play, the more involved you want him to be in your team. Maybe that, as much as the dearth of great alternatives after Christian Yelich's back took him out of commission, is what has kept Pat Murphy writing Turang's name in at the top of the Brewers batting order even in the late stages of September, despite the young player's .238/.300/.327 batting line since May 1. He doesn't want Turang to lose the vivacity of his game or the ability to infect the offense with the same quality by stashing him at the bottom of the batting order.

One way or another, when a right-handed pitcher starts for the opponents, Turang is usually atop the lineup. He doesn't get on base nearly as often as a team wants a leadoff hitter to do so, but when he does, he's a dangerous, chaos-inducing presence. He's up to 47 steals in 53 attempts on the year. He goes first-to-third on nearly half the singles hit before he has a chance to steal second, and all season, he has not stopped at third when a single was hit while he was on second or a double was hit while he was on first. He moves runners over and brings them in exceptionally well. He's a good situational offensive player, even if he's being asked to bat more often than he would in a fully optimized Milwaukee offense.

Defensively, though, none of that caveating or couching is required. Defensively, Turang is shaping up as one of the two or three best defensive second basemen of his generation, and he's having what could turn out to be the best single season at the position in over a decade. Defensively, he takes over games.

On batted balls with a launch angle under 8 degrees hit in a 30-degree wedge from the second base bag over toward first (in other words, on all the batted balls we can reasonably say are the responsibility of a second baseman, if they can get to them), the Brewers have allowed opponents the lowest rate of reaching on balls in play (counting both hits and times reaching on errors) of any team in baseball, at .219. It's not a matter of their pitchers inducing good, weak contact or of ingenious positioning, even if both the pitchers and the coaching staff do those things quite well. It's a matter of Turang being really, really good at covering his ground.

Shading toward the hole against a lefty batter is right and proper, but it makes things tough when that batter--a fairly fleet-footed one, for that matter--hits the ball up the middle. No matter. Turang gets up to speed quickly, and his ability to throw hard on the run is dazzling.

He's just as comfortable going the other way, and his proprioception when he has to turn and find a target for a throw is superb.

It hasn't been a great season, ironically, for the Brewers turning double plays. Willy Adames has struggled in multiple facets, and Turang has had a hard time feeding his strong-armed shortstop in ways that work for him this year. At times, though, his range and his aggressiveness are enough to make up for Adames's lack of quickness or lateness to get into position.

The aggressiveness of that play, taking the lead runner after an accidental inside-out swing by Ha-Seong Kim, is an exemplar of Turang's style as a second baseman. He's always hunting, the way Adames has always done on the other side of the bag, and that's why they work well together--even in what has been a difficult year for the veteran shortstop.

Turang is rangy, and he's sure-handed, and he's creative about getting his preferred hop on some balls. He shines brightest, though, when the ball is hit like a rocket in his general direction, and his job is just to react and snare it.

That play is much more difficult than it looks, especially given the hop he was going to have to try to deal with if he didn't catch it in the air. Notice how much he gave ground, getting out into the grass to field the ball despite being confined to the dirt until the pitch is released. Turang has an unusual knack for that; most infielders struggle with the angle they create for themselves by moving away from the ball they're trying to catch.

When I say he takes over games with his glove, I'm thinking especially of that game against the Marlins, when he did this:

And then this, on the next play:

These are two sharply hit line-drive should-be singles. Some second basemen get to them on a hop, but in the first case, even doing that would mean a run, because there was no double play to be had and the bases were loaded. He had to go left for one, and right for the other. That could have been three runs worth of clean singles, and against even most great defenders at second, it would have been one or two runs of ground balls merely kept in the dirt. Turang made it two outs, and the Brewers went on to win that game, 6-2.

He doesn't just get horizontal. His vertical playmaking has also been exceptional, all year.

Sports Info Solutions's Defensive Runs Saved (DRS) doesn't count those two diving plays against Miami as saving three runs. Like most offensive value metrics, DRS is designed to be context-neutral. It only gives Turang credit for the difference between the likely outcome of a play on an average run value basis and the actual outcome. Even so, the Crew's keystone stud has been worth 22 DRS this year, pacing the league. He could, with a strong final few games, finish with the most DRS by a second baseman since Darwin Barney of the Cubs, in 2012.

Turang should unequivocally win the Fielding Bible Award at second base this year, but more important than the accolades are the impacts, and the aesthetics. Murphy talks often about seeing the game moving more toward having shortstop-qualified players stationed all the way around the infield, and center fielders stationed all the way around the outfield. Turang, who might yet slide to short when Adames departs via free agency this winter but is almost too good at this position to make that seem sensible, is a perfect embodiment of his vision.

He makes the game different and harder for opposing offenses. He alters everything, tilting the contest in the Brewers' favor over and over. The limitations of his offensive skills are real and important to keep in mind, but Turang has established himself as a huge part of a very good team this year, and while they might want to upgrade the top of their roster and make him slightly less indispensable next year, the team won't want to lose the way he shapes their character on the field and shrinks the field for hitters from the other side.