How the NL's best defensive player has transformed at the plate

In 2024, Brewers second baseman Brice Turang was a standout player on multiple levels.

His defense? Elite. He was celebrated as the best fielder in the National League.

His baserunning? Superb. Turang was extremely valuable as a runner and stole 50 bases in 56 tries. That included a span of 36 consecutive steals that carried over from 2023 into '24.

His hitting? Well ... did we mention his defense and baserunning?

Turang did not boast an impact bat last season, as he turned in a .349 slugging percentage and a .665 OPS; both numbers ranked inside the bottom 15 among qualified hitters. Through his first two MLB seasons, Turang carried a .239/.303/.328 slash line across 1,067 plate appearances and a 75 OPS+ (100 is league average). It was the lowest OPS+ from any player with at least 1,000 plate appearances through the previous two years.

However, something is very different with this 25-year-old in 2025. And it didn't take long to notice. In the Brewers' second game of the season, Turang belted a fastball from the Yankees' Carlos Carrasco 412 feet for a home run. The pitch came off his bat at 109.8 mph. It was the type of batted ball we hadn't seen very often from Turang in the big leagues. But it was a sign of things to come.

Now, a little more than three weeks later, this top-notch defender and speed merchant is batting .310 with a .429 slugging and a 116 OPS+. Turang's transformation has been stark and appears legitimate.

Here's how he has done it.

All stats updated through Saturday.

He's made huge gains with his batted-ball quality

Turang excelled at putting the ball in play last season. His 13.8% whiff rate and 17.0% strikeout rate ranked in the 97th and 78th percentiles, respectively. The problem? There wasn't much authority behind that contact. His 2.4% barrel rate and 29.7% hard-hit rate were each within the bottom-10 percentile.

So, this season, Turang has made a sacrifice: less contact overall for better contact more often. His whiff and K rates have risen -- 17.7% and 20.9%, respectively -- but both are still above the league average. In return, Turang has made some of the biggest improvements among any player in baseball in generating more hard contact.

“That's the whole goal -- trying to be able to hit with good power and maintain that contact," Turang said last week.

Turang's average exit velocity
2024: 87.0 mph // 2025: 92.5 mph -- 5th-largest gain of any qualified hitter from 2024 to '25

Turang's hard-hit rate
2024: 29.7% // 2025: 49.3% -- 2nd-largest gain of any qualified hitter from 2024 to '25

Turang's barrel rate
2024: 2.4% // 2025: 9.0% -- tied for the 20th-largest gain of any qualified hitter from 2024 to '25

That barrel rate is not just a personal best; it's more than double Turang's previous best in any single month of his MLB career. It's helped him register a slugging percentage that's 80 points better than his 2024 mark but also lower than his .466 expected slugging, indicating that this is no fluke.

But what about Turang's changes just before his bat meets the ball? There's plenty to talk about there, too.

There is more force in his swing

Turang didn't have very good bat speed last season -- and he still doesn't, relatively. His 69.1 mph average swing speed sits in the 15th percentile. But that's a 2.9 mph increase from 2024; only Astros infielder Brendan Rodgers has added more bat speed this year.

That added speed has come with more "fast swings," which are defined as any swing clocked at 75 mph or greater. Turang's fast-swing rate was just 3.4% last year. But that number has more than tripled this season, up to 12.5%. No one will confuse Turang's swing with that of Oneil Cruz or Junior Caminero or other big boppers who frequently put everything they have into their hacks. But, in the simplest terms, swinging faster gives you a better chance of doing damage from pitch to pitch.

MLB average on swings of 75 mph+ in 2025: .606 slugging, 55.2% hard-hit rate, 16.3% barrel rate
MLB average on swings less than 75 mph in 2025: .348 slugging, 44.2% hard-hit rate, 7.7% barrel rate

After registering 19 batted balls on a fast swing in 2024, Turang already has nine such batted balls on a fast swing this year. Four of them went for hits, with two of those turning into barrels that flew over the fence. The first was that aforementioned homer at Yankee Stadium with the 109.8 mph exit velocity -- a career-best for Turang by nearly 1 full mile per hour. The second came against the Reds on April 4, when Turang put a 76.7 mph swing on a cutter that landed 418 feet away.

He has overhauled his setup in the box

Turang's swings are creating a different type of sound this year. But even before he offers at a pitch, you will see a hitter who looks radically different from one season ago. As Tom Verducci spotlighted in a recent episode of MLB Central, Turang is standing up taller in the batter's box. He has moved his hands up and awaits each offering with his bat pointing toward the sky as opposed to lying horizontally over his shoulder. Turang has also moved about 4.5 inches deeper into the box, allowing him more time to react to pitches, and he has significantly narrowed his stance, as MLB.com's Mike Petriello pointed out earlier this month.

When asked about these differences, Turang mostly downplayed any impact they may have in his strong start to this season.

But there is one change that he admits has paid off: the reincorporation of a leg kick. Turang, a first-round Draft pick by the Brewers in 2018, timed up his swing with a pronounced leg kick while coming up through the Minors, but his lower-body movements were much more subtle in 2023 and '24. This offseason, Turang started hitting with a leg kick again while working on his game with his father, Brian, who spent two seasons in the Majors with the Mariners. And everything started to click.

"Not having any leg kick or anything like that -- it was too fast," Brice said. "It wasn't letting my hands get in a good position to hit. I was getting very pushy. ... I've always kind of been a guy who got my foot up in the air, and so we went back to that a little bit. We were just kind of just messing around with it. And all of a sudden, I started getting into the slot I wanted to get into."

That kick has contributed to a marked difference in Turang's stride as he attacks a pitch. Specifically, his forward stride is much larger in 2025 than it was in 2024.

Turang said he could still be a decent hitter without the leg kick because of his strong hand-eye coordination. But with it as a part of his swing routine, he has been able to maximize his talent.

No one, including Turang himself, is expecting all of this to result in a massive power output this season.

"I’m not trying to hit homers," he said. "I’ve gone down that road, and it didn’t really work out well for me.”

Turang is just as likely to hunt for a game-winning bunt as he is for a dinger. But he has now found a stance and a swing that works for him, and it's resulting in forceful contact as well as production that has him on track to soar far beyond what he achieved at the plate in 2023 and '24.

If Turang finishes the season with something resembling his current 116 OPS+ -- meaning he is 16% better than league average offensively -- that may not earn him any MVP votes. But combining that with his already outstanding defense and baserunning would make Turang one of the game's most well-rounded position players and exceedingly valuable to the Brewers as they vie for their third consecutive NL Central title.

MLB.com's Adam McCalvy contributed to the reporting in this article.