Brice Turang Is a Great Model for How To Increase Bat Speed

I like to research what’s taking place with particular person batters as a approach to have a broader dialogue about hitting. The story I wrote about Oneil Cruz again in January additionally coated how uncommon it’s for long-limbed hitters to crush excessive pitches. Digging into Brent Rooker’s glorious 2024 marketing campaign in December provided me a chance to take a look at how batters could make delicate changes to command the highest of the zone. And in the present day’s piece on Brewers second baseman Brice Turang doubles as a primer on one of the best ways to make bat velocity positive factors.

It’s virtually all the time factor for hitters to extend their bat velocity. That sounds apparent, proper? If you happen to swing quicker, you possibly can hit the ball tougher, get to extra pitches, and have extra time to react. No arguments there.

However when coaching to extend your bat velocity, you don’t simply swing some weighted bats round and magically develop into a greater hitter. Your aim must be to swing quicker whereas preserving the strengths of your swing. Typically higher-effort hacks can have unintended penalties, so hitters and their coaches want to concentrate to how particular person swing elements work together with all of the others. For Turang particularly, this meant he had to determine learn how to swing tougher whereas sustaining his elite contact abilities, which come from his bat angle variability and quick stroke. With bat velocity, intercept, and swing size knowledge now within the public sphere, we will higher perceive how Turang is doing this. However first, let’s check out how a lot better Turang has been this season than he was in 2024:

Sure, one way or the other, this is identical hitter. Turang’s Barrel% has jumped from the third percentile to the 56th, whereas his Exhausting-Hit% surged from the ninth percentile to the eightieth. That’s ridiculous. Turang was basically a bottom-decile man throughout the board when it got here to contact high quality. Now, he’s nicely above common, and he’s improved with out compromising the opposite components of his sport, which I’ll get into later. He’s additionally elevated his energy ceiling, along with his max exit velocity climbing from the thirty third to the sixty fourth percentile.

All these enhancements are as a result of the truth that Turang is swinging considerably quicker. No certified hitter has elevated his common bat velocity greater than the two.8 mph that Turang has added, from 66.2 mph final 12 months to 69.0 mph in 2025. That’s essential when you think about that final 12 months batters posted a .164 xwOBA on swings beneath 66 mph. how the distribution of Turang’s swing speeds has modified additional demonstrates why it was particularly essential for him to take tougher hacks:

This visualization particularly focuses on swings when Turang made contact. In 2024, a few tenth of his swings had been at or beneath 60 mph, and people swings yielded a .165 xwOBA. Now, practically all of his swings have a velocity above that threshold. He has raised his flooring a ton by minimizing how usually he swings that slowly. The midpoint of his swing velocity distribution has shifted past 70 mph – most of the time he’s giving himself an opportunity to do actual injury, and that simply wasn’t the case prior to now.

Going again to what I discussed earlier, Turang has saved different elements of his swing virtually precisely the identical whilst he’s made these positive factors. His level of contact relative to his physique is identical. Final 12 months, his intercept level (which additionally contains swings with out contact) was 31 inches versus his heart of mass. This 12 months, that’s shifted, however barely, 30.6. That is unbelievable. To grasp why, I must get a little bit nerdy and herald some extra context. There are methods to cheat bat velocity positive factors that may really be detrimental to a hitter. Sure, I do know that’s a bit opposite to my earlier level, nonetheless, it may be true! If a hitter does the whole lot the identical and shifts his level of contact additional out in entrance of his physique (even when that creates suboptimal contact) his bat velocity will improve!

It comes all the way down to physics. One element of measuring bat velocity is the space from the bat’s knob (assuming that’s the reference level) to the purpose of impression. If that radius will increase, so will your bat velocity, although clearly there’s a restrict right here. Meaning that you would be able to hold your angular velocity (how shortly the bat rotates) the identical whereas lengthening your radius to extend your bat velocity. There’s a candy spot for that radius improve to be useful. If you happen to exceed it, you’ll begin to yank all of your stable contact foul, and if you wish to hold the ball truthful, you’ll have to change your bat angles, which ends up in suboptimal contact. Like with each a part of baseball, stability is required.

Primarily based on this calculation of bat velocity, we will deduce that Turang is creating extra angular velocity in an effort to improve his general bat velocity with out altering his common intercept level a lot. Excellent! Together with that, Turang’s swing size remains to be elite (ninetieth percentile this 12 months in comparison with a centesimal final 12 months), and he’s now standing extra towards the again of the field. The previous means his swing remains to be quick and candy, and the latter adjustment may imply that when he does shift his level of contact farther out in entrance, he has extra wiggle room to maintain the ball truthful. All this mixed results in the kind of enhancements we’ve seen to this point.

Lastly, I’ll depart with you some video highlighting how Turang has drastically modified his setup in comparison with final 12 months, which possible is without doubt one of the essential components driving his bat velocity positive factors:

2024

2025

He stands extra slim along with his fingers larger and begins his load with a giant leg kick. This has helped him swing the bat quicker on common by slicing down on his slower, non-A swings whereas additionally sustaining his earlier level of contact. For a lot of hitters, the leg kick is a timing mechanism and never only a approach to arrange their rotation. I believe that is the case for Turang. And to ensure this variation wouldn’t depart him off stability, he has paired it with larger fingers to maintain his higher and decrease halves linked. Actually good course of selections right here.

Turang has all the time been an amazing baserunner and a very good fielder, however due to the positive factors he made throughout the offseason, he has elevated each his ceiling and his flooring. And consequently, he’s now rising as a worthwhile on a regular basis participant for Milwaukee.