The underrated aspect of Brice Turang’s game that has improved immensely in 2026

Apologies if I sound like Brad Pitt trying to do his best Billy Beane impression for a moment, but there's an unsexy skill that the Milwaukee Brewers remain particularly good at: drawing walks.

Entering play on May 7, their offense ranked third in MLB (and second in the NL) with 162 free passes taken, which includes a league-leading total of 11 intentional walks. This is an organizational philosophy that extends down even to the lowest levels of the minor leagues; getting on base is just a good thing to be good at, no matter how you do it.

The ringleader of this sabermetrics circus is the real surprise. After years of forcing his way onto the basepaths by way of contact, Brice Turang has doubled down on the Crew's patient approach in 2026. He's drawn 29 walks in 32 games this season, good for the sixth-most in the league and tied for the third-most in the Senior Circuit.

Put another way: Turang's 18.8% walk rate sits in the 98th percentile among all qualified hitters, making it his best relative skill in a season in which he's producing a ridiculous 169 wRC+. That'll do.

Brice Turang has learned the art of the walk, and it has been glorious to watch

Naturally, Turang's .439 on-base percentage leads qualified hitters in the National League by a comfortable margin. That's prime Joey Votto territory, which is kind of ridiculous company for a contact-and-speed second baseman to be keeping in his age-26 season.

He's become sort of the platonic ideal of the "bat control over bat speed" camp of players, hitting the ball ridiculously hard by way of elite swing decisions, rather than just whipping the bat through the zone as fast as possible. He's certainly gotten better in that regard (his average swing speed is up more than two miles per hour from his rookie campaign), but he succeeds by laying off bad pitches, rarely whiffing through the ones he does swing at.

Thus, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that he's tied for fourth in the league in fWAR (1.9). And, unlike so many of his contemporaries in that range (Yordan Alvarez, Ben Rice, etc.), he's a dominant figure on the basepaths and with the glove. As far as well-rounded players go, there's an argument to be made that Turang has been the best of them in 2026.

Do you think it's safe to say that the Brewers wish they had given him that long-rumored extension yet?

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