Rewriting Brice Turang | Baseball Prospectus

Translated by Miguel Boada Nájera

Somewhere inside you is a kind of bat. Maybe you weren’t programmed when you were born, but at some point in your youth you picked up a bat and you gradually started to create more of a swing. It is a habit. It’s an author of some kind. By the time you reached the major leagues, it was already a multi-part, mixed mix of elements deeply embedded in your muscles, interwoven through years of training, forming knots of cooperation and conflict. Not all coaches have told you to do the same thing as everyone else. Not everything the coach has told you about, even the things that have come together for you, are perfectly suited to you. What works best for the average person, however, is not what will work for the game’s genetics and attitudes that make it to the highest level of baseball in the land. But you have learned what we have incorporated from certain coaches whose teachings have been almost overwritten over time.

“Overwritten” is probably the right word. Your approach is somewhat stylized. It is personal and perfect. But it is also a signature of the network that one develops over the other. Everyone has found enough stability to generate a part of the success that took you here and stayed in you, like the figures remain on the skin. Here there is no possibility of using a laser to remove it. You just put new ink around that you don’t want on the surface.

Brice Turang has his signature style. It would be easier for her to read if she has tattoos (she has many by the way) that belong to her, because like many major league players, Turang is the son of a baseball player. Brian Turang’s time in the Major Leagues was short, but he arrived. That certainly gave young Turang a head on swings. He used the bats that his father (Caesar used a right-hander that bored opposing teams) preferred. It has always had a fair lead because it has always had the full-time guidance of a professional force.

However, this year, Turang has put new ink on that old signature batting style. Caesar was very different this time, as he became a player capable of modifying his swing. A little extra lean allowed him to reach his maximum power more consistently than ever before. He’s never been a hitter — no one is a natural opposite fielder who comes down to the intent of the barrel on contact — but he’s found enough pitches that he can draw to become more threats. His lean average was 31st (below league average) in 2025; 36 in 2026. No player has added as significant a loft to his swing as Turang. That number is a clear sign that there has been a change in oscillation, and Turang’s surface numbers show the same transformation. Turang had 79 DRC + as a rookie in 2023. That number grew to 91 in 2024 and 109 in 2025. This season, up to 115. The change he made was a wise decision.

But not any free. There is no adjustment, much less a change in the signature that is engraved in your bones and nerves than in your central nervous system. As he took a higher swing, Turang became more aggressive against the ball in the lower part of the zone and against those who pass in the middle zone, where he has to hit the most vertical area of ​​the surface. But when you find yourself on the pitch, you will find some joy.

No hitter loses his bat speed when he swings into a high pitch, compared to those of the middle or lower, like Turang. His average slugging velocity on the down pitch this season was 72.3 mph. In the middle, it was 70.4 mph. At high volume, meanwhile, the figure plummets to 65.6 mph. You’d expect everyone in the middle of the plate to throw faster against pitches, but then again, Turang has a bigger difference than any other hitter in baseball between those pitches and pitches. He is one of the hitters that most changes the inclination of his swing according to the vertical position of the pitch, which is generally good (at this top players are people like Luis Arráez, Jake Mangum and Ernie Clemens, among others). However, the best players of this type see the ball early, slow their hand movements and throw slowly, gradually losing speed when they throw completely to contact the ball at the top of the zone – which was so little to lose in the first place. Turang did not do enough. Altering his inclination towards higher manufacturing has made him a move that he considers somewhat artificial. It was allowed. It is the best way to move your body to optimize your results. But because it is not entirely natural, it is not equally adaptable. It is evident that the high pitch was forged. Your attempts at flattery are more influenced by factors such as the fluidity on which your movement depends.

working on correcting It’s good that very early this season, teams recognized the change he made and began attacking him in the high zone. And what a weekend. He tried to do some smart things like being more patient (literally it didn’t work) and bunting a few times, but he just couldn’t find a sure way to hit those fastballs. He went through some stretches where he hit the team with high fastballs in three consecutive evenings that he swung and missed. He walked through the spaces in which he saw more fastibulables, but he hit nasty balls.

Finally, in September, he was able to find something. He continues to swing at the highest pitches, missing 38.6% of his swings at pitches, but he judges and hits balls well; The survival of some of the voices of the preceding months is sufficient for the domination; He regained his bat speed and was able to reach a little further with those hits. He also hit a home run on one of those pitches in the final week of the regular season, against the Phillies. It felt like when a football player videotaped something weird in the final game of the playoffs, forcing his opponent to plan to include it in his game, even though he never planned to use it again.

Neither that slight nod (if it was such) nor the general arrangements in September allowed Turang to shine so much in October. The Padres climbed the ladder a lot against him, especially up and out, and they’re eating him alive there. Somewhere on the inside, he is more inclined to put on the pitch. I used to be against him. But it is a bad use against everything, so that unless you sit on the pitch and sometimes think quickly, you are going to make your way out of this little inconvenience. slump feeding something below or, if possible, a little return to the old swing: reconnecting with something deeper in his blood group, but letting go of what helped, will become the best version of his time for the greater 2026 season. T always asks you to choose between incomplete options. That’s the only dilemma Turang decided to pose this week.