Major League Baseball’s NL MVP finalists came with one name that caught a lot of Milwaukee Brewers fans off guard: Brice Turang.
Turang is in the top three with Chicago Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong, the front-runner, and Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani, a four-time MVP. For a player who spent much of the 2026 season outside the louder MVP conversation, the nod may have been unexpected. But the case for Turang gets stronger the deeper you dig.
The Brewers second baseman put together a season that stacked up with the best in the league by Baseball Reference’s Wins Above Replacement metric. Turang finished with 7.3 bWAR, tied to Christian Yelich’s MVP-winning 2018 season, and trailed only Crow-Armstrong at 9.8 and Philadelphia Phillies starter Cristopher Sánchez at 8.1. That kind of all-around production makes the finalist spot look less like a surprise and more like a fair reward.
It also says something about where the MVP race is headed. The BBWAA’s recognition of Turang reflects a broader shift in how the award is being judged.
It used to lean heavily toward power numbers and home runs. Now, defense and baserunning matter more than they once did.
Turang still gave the Brewers plenty with the bat. In 2026, the 26-year-old hit 21 home runs, doubled 37 times, drove in 100 runs and posted a 124 OPS+. Those are strong offensive numbers on their own, even if they might not have been enough to carry him into finalist territory in a different era of MVP voting.
What pushed him over the top was the full package. Turang won his second Gold Glove for his work in the field and is also in line to contend for his second Platinum Glove Award. Add in 19 stolen bases, and the picture becomes clear: he brings the kind of five-tool profile teams dream about.
That’s why his inclusion among the finalists feels earned, even if he probably won’t take home the award. It also marks another step in Turang’s rise from where he started.
As a rookie in 2023, he was one of the worst hitters in baseball. Now he’s a legitimate MVP finalist, and calling him “among the best players in the sport” doesn’t feel like a stretch anymore.
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