“Just Having Fun”: Royce Lewis and the Ironic Burden of Joy in Pro Sports

[Nick Nelson]

Image courtesy of Daniel Kucin Jr.-Imagn Images

Baseball, at its core, is a game. A kid’s pastime. A joyous outlet! But at the highest level, under the suffocating weight of expectation and pressure, it often becomes anything but fun — which is what makes it so jarring (yet understandable) when a slumping player leans into that very mindset as a way to find their way out.

Royce Lewis, the Twins’ once-untouchable phenom, is in the midst of the deepest and most unrelenting slump of his professional life. He’s 0-for-his-last-24, now batting .138 on the season. He hasn't looked right at the plate since last July. And after another hitless game in Tampa on Wednesday, these were his answers to reporters:

Quote

“Just having fun. Playing baseball in the box. Feels like a Wiffle ball game right now because you know how a Wiffle ball stays up? That’s what my ball feels like.”

“I just need some luck for adjustments. I opened up today for the sake of I’m just going to go out there and have fun. If I get out, I’m going to have fun getting out.”

You can see what he’s trying to do: reframe the moment, lighten the burden, return to the roots. But there’s an almost tragic irony in the effort. When a gifted athlete like Lewis, who once seemed like he could do no wrong, starts repeating “have fun” like a mantra, it doesn’t sound like a return to joy. It sounds like survival.

This is, after all, the same Royce Lewis who once said, “I don’t do that slump thing.” He's a freak of nature who seemed immune to struggle; a top draft pick and postseason hero who defied reasonable logic to immediately dominate whenever he stepped in the box following every lengthy injury hiatus. Lewis made the hardest sport on earth look like backyard Wiffle ball. Now, it feels like Wiffle ball for a different reason, evidently. 

The fall from “unstoppable force” to “grasping for answers” is not unique to Lewis. Baseball humbles everyone, eventually. But the whiplash is amplified when it hits someone who has always seemed like The Chosen One. For fans, it's a little surreal. For teammates, it's a reminder. And for Royce himself, it might just be the first time he’s having to learn what most pros confront early: this game isn’t fair, and it definitely isn’t always fun.

Still, there’s something deeply human in Lewis’s coping mechanism. We all tell ourselves little lies to make it through the grind. “This is fun” becomes a sort of foxhole affirmation, like a soldier in a lost war muttering “I’m fighting for a good cause.” You don’t say it because it’s true. You say it because you need it to be.

There was a time when even his own teammates couldn’t relate to Lewis. “He’s a freak,” Matt Wallner once said at a Twins Daily Winter Meltdown event with both awe and resignation. And he was. But now, as Royce struggles and searches for joy in a cruel game, he’s finally doing something that’s relatable: reminding us he’s human after all.

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[Peter]

Send him down or get rid of him!!! Acts worn thin and stupid face paint needs to go!

[Mark G]

As much as I feel for the guy, and as much as I hope he does work it out, a contending MLB roster is not the place to be working on your swing and trying to get right again.  He appears to need some time out of the spotlight to get his head on straight again and his swing back.  Send him across the river for a while and I'll bet we see him back before the All Star break.  But he can't bring this roster down while he gets it together.  

[Rufus]

He needs to go to St. P and get it together.  I lost a lot of respect for him last year when he blamed the long season for his fall off last year.  The guy played in 90 some games.. 

[insagt1]

He's a mess right now but actually it started late last season when he refused to try another position when asked. Then he stopped hitting. Right now he hasn't earned a spot on this roster

[CRF]

I'm glad he's having some fun...he's probably a cult of one. I doubt there are very many of us having fun watching him right now. He's doing absolutely nothing. 

[tony&rodney]

The best answer for why Royce Lewis is struggling is that baseball is a difficult game. Proficiency or just being an average productive regular is incredibly challenging. At least Lewis has benefitted from tremendous support from Twins management. All signs point to him receiving a host of opportunities to recover from his current level of play.

[Fire Dan Gladden]

I was thinking about this yesterday...
We may be close to a point where the Twins need to send Lewis down to AAA for some work. Not because of the slump, but more because of where it seems his head is at. His public comments make it seem like he is totally lost out there and grasping at straws. This is where the Hitting Coach is supposed to step in and keep Lewis keep perspective, but that seems to not be happening.

Send him down, get his head on straight, and bring him back up. Did wonders for Wallner last year.

[LambchoP]

He's been lost at the plate for some time now, going back to last year even. He's a liability at the plate for a team that's already struggling to score runs. Lee can play a more than capable 3rd base. Send Lewis to AAA to get his head right, find his swing and get his confidence back. Call him back up once he's earned it and can actually help the team in the second half.

[NYCTK]

The tale of Jarren Duran reminds me that these are kids, and we have to be respectful of them even when they're playing like complete dogshit and driving us up a wall.

But, yeah, he's not special. He WAS a first round draft pick, and he DID have some early success, but right now he has not earned a place on a major league roster. He has earned himself a trip back to AAA and the failure of the Twins to send him down is just hurting him at this point. He shouldn't have been called back up to the majors in the first place. He clearly wasn't right when he was playing in AAA on rehab. 

He's not yet 26, and there's this plenty of time for him to right his ship. But he is not a major league caliber player right now, much less a starter. 

[jmlease1]

Because of all the injuries, we still don't really know what kind of MLB player Royce Lewis really is. Even his slumps are in a relatively small scale of time (last season's collapse is more memorable because it was the last thing was got to see from him before the offseason, but also happened at a time when we really needed him to hit, and instead of stepping up to help the team pull out of the tailspin he deepened it). This season he's struggled at the plate all year...but all year for him is only about 3 weeks.

Complicated issue to navigate, I think. This is the first time he's really had to deal with failure as a player; he was able to get through some pretty awful injury luck with his boundless confidence and positive attitude...and we loved that about him. Not he's struggling and it seems like his attitude is starting to grate on some people. Is he going to be better off going down to AAA for a few weeks to get his mind and mechanics right, hopefully beat up on lesser pitchers, and get a re-set? Or would that be a bigger blow to his confidence? Is his problem right now mental, physical, or mechanical?

The Wallner comp is interesting: there's an argument to be made that Wallner was an even bigger mess (.080 BA is brutal, the K's were huge, and he wasn't adding anything defensively) but the move to drop him down ended up working...but we were also covered a bit by Kepler and Castro having hot runs in May. Not sure what the right answer is. The "send him down" push seems a little too reactionary?

[Road trip]

I wish him the best, and hope for the best, but he's not a "freak" athlete anymore.  Some combination of injuries and his body's natural maturing curve have taken that away.  He's bulked up, but at the cost of 2 or 3 or 5 steps of speed.  His movements have lost their smoothness and gracefulness.  None of that is his fault, but his job (and his coaches jobs) now is to adjust to what he can and can't do and figure out how to be successful going forward.  As others have mentioned, AAA may be the best place for this to take place, be it three weeks or three months.

[Doctor Gast]

When Lewis rejoined the Twins, that was the time the Twins started their successful run, which is still going on, independent of his offense. It's the intangible of positivity that Lewis brings, of which Twins constantly battle with negativity. Also, the chemistry that occurs when the core is complete. The Twins sliding isn't due to Lewis as much as the absence of Correa & Buxton. Correa is back but Buxton & Bader are absent in the OF. IMO, sending Lewis down will hurt the Twins more than help. His bat will come around, it's just a matter of time.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

He came up and had some spectacular moments, so we all figured that's who he would always be.  However, now the world has caught up to him and he can't figure out a way out of the downward spiral.  I'm sure both Royce and his coaches have tried lots of things.   It's been a LONG spiral (actually very little like Wallner, who just had a bad start to the season).  In his current iteration, he really does nothing for the team's chances of winning and for all the talk about "he's hitting the ball hard", if that were true then his batting average would be higher (not to mention his other stats).  A trip to St. Paul right now would be excellent for getting him back to being the player that we hope he can be.  A good Royce Lewis for the last half or even third of the season will be better for him and for the team than the one we have now for the rest of the season. Right now, Jonah Bride is probably the better option. 

[Western SD Fan]

This may be a scenario where the FO doesn't want to admit they screwed up in bringing up Lewis too soon.  Many of us watched or kept track of his rehab in St. Paul and it didn't look like he was ready.  Given the overall team situation, it seemed bringing him up to the MLB club was more out of desperation than it was that he was ready to contribute.  

As other commenters have made, Lewis needs a trip back to St. Paul.  Whether that means an IL visit to "save face" for the FO or just a straight send to AAA, I don't really care.  It's more important for himself and us as fans that he gets himself right and prepared for a playoff push.  Even the FO can claim a win in sending him down by saying that getting Lewis back on track will be like a mid-season trade for a hitter that will benefit the club.

Finally, to address the "have fun" quote.  All of us have had to use some coping mechanism to keep going and keep your spirits up.  I've said before that this is possibly the first time that he has this level of disappointing results in his life and he probably doesn't know how to react as of yet.  I'm sure he realizes he's pushing too hard and being honest about essentially being out of answers should ring lots of bells with the coaching staff and the FO that they need to help him and quickly.

[NYCTK]

9 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

When Lewis rejoined the Twins, that was the time the Twins started their successful run, which is still going on, independent of his offense.

No it didn't. They won 2 of 3 from the Red Sox before he got activated from rehab. And had gone 5-1 in their home stand before that road trip. Which coincides more so with the activation of Brock Stewart. Or Kody Clemens. Maybe Brock or Kody is this mystical, irreplaceable clubhouse buoy that you're trying to make Royce out to be. 

And even if your timeline were accurate, we can just as easily theorize it's Willi Castro who was activated the same day, or maybe the departure of Julien. 

16 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

His bat will come around, it's just a matter of time.

He's .211 / .275 / .397 the last calendar year. He's expended all his good will and this idea that he'll eventually figure it out cannot be backed up by anything other than hope. IF he's going to figure it out, he stands a much better chance of doing so back in AAA. 

[NYCTK]

13 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

and for all the talk about "he's hitting the ball hard",

This is where statcast expected stats comes in handy. He IS hitting the ball better than his results. But his xwOBA is still only 0.303 and his xBA is 0.231. It's not like Juan Soto who is slumping hard but still has a xwOBA of 0.420. 

[Patzky]

15 minutes ago, Western SD Fan said:

This may be a scenario where the FO doesn't want to admit they screwed up in bringing up Lewis too soon.  Many of us watched or kept track of his rehab in St. Paul and it didn't look like he was ready.  Given the overall team situation, it seemed bringing him up to the MLB club was more out of desperation than it was that he was ready to contribute.  

As other commenters have made, Lewis needs a trip back to St. Paul.  Whether that means an IL visit to "save face" for the FO or just a straight send to AAA, I don't really care.  It's more important for himself and us as fans that he gets himself right and prepared for a playoff push.  Even the FO can claim a win in sending him down by saying that getting Lewis back on track will be like a mid-season trade for a hitter that will benefit the club.

Finally, to address the "have fun" quote.  All of us have had to use some coping mechanism to keep going and keep your spirits up.  I've said before that this is possibly the first time that he has this level of disappointing results in his life and he probably doesn't know how to react as of yet.  I'm sure he realizes he's pushing too hard and being honest about essentially being out of answers should ring lots of bells with the coaching staff and the FO that they need to help him and quickly.

Very few have mentioned 'helping him'. You did. I hope to heck he's not too proud to accept what help is given.

[bean5302]

While I agree he might do well with an assignment to get his swing back, but the truth is most successful teams the Twins are saying they want to emulate let younger guys like Lewis play every day and struggle through the terrible points. This team has handled Lewis extremely poorly in my opinion. It might be they're trying to bridge the failures of management at this point.

I'm not sure what's eating Lewis. Might be just injury fear at this point or mechanics. I'm not sure AAA will help with that because he wasn't hitting in AAA when the Twins called up him up, clearly not ready.

 

[T.O.]

25 minutes ago, Western SD Fan said:

This may be a scenario where the FO doesn't want to admit they screwed up

This is a recurring theme.

[T.O.]

"You can see what he’s trying to do: reframe the moment, lighten the burden, return to the roots. But there’s an almost tragic irony in the effort. When a gifted athlete like Lewis, who once seemed like he could do no wrong, starts repeating “have fun” like a mantra, it doesn’t sound like a return to joy. It sounds like survival."

That's a profound observation, more so than I usually read in these articles.

His moments of brilliance were too long to be a fluke. Right now he is fighting only himself.
I wish he could learn to shut up, stop trying so hard, watch, and maybe gain some humility. 

It doesn't help when the Twins have a bobble head day for a player that doesn't deserve it.       

 

[T.O.]

From the look of Lewis' face he must think every game is a makeup game.

[jmlease1]

19 minutes ago, T.O. said:

This is a recurring theme.

Someone struggling doesn't necessarily mean someone screwed up. Why does there have to be fault assigned? Feels like people are reading in what they want when assigning "blame" for Lewis' problems this season.

[Linus]

Just now, jmlease1 said:

Someone struggling doesn't necessarily mean someone screwed up. Why does there have to be fault assigned? Feels like people are reading in what they want when assigning "blame" for Lewis' problems this season.

I think he was referring to front office and some people’s belief that they try to save face in their personnel decisions.   To the other point, I’m completely confident Royce wants out of this slump more than anyone. It’s a weird social dynamic that people want to assign fault in all situations of failure. 

[Mike Sixel]

5 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Someone struggling doesn't necessarily mean someone screwed up. Why does there have to be fault assigned? Feels like people are reading in what they want when assigning "blame" for Lewis' problems this season.

This site really thinks everything is someone's fault. It's kind of mind boggling. 

[Rod Carews Birthday]

55 minutes ago, NYCTK said:

This is where statcast expected stats comes in handy. He IS hitting the ball better than his results. But his xwOBA is still only 0.303 and his xBA is 0.231. It's not like Juan Soto who is slumping hard but still has a xwOBA of 0.420. 

So. If he gets his expected results, he’s below average.  Ouch!

[Mark G]

22 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

This site really thinks everything is someone's fault. It's kind of mind boggling. 

Brings to mind the old saying:  I didn't say it was your fault, I SAID I was going to blame you!  🙃

[NYCTK]

30 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

This site really thinks everything is someone's fault. It's kind of mind boggling. 

I blame Rocco for this attitude. 

[Mahoning]

One problem with sending Royce to AAA is that the Saints already have Jose Miranda and Eddie Julien stinking it up there. Not only would Toby Gardenhire have three flamed out big leaguers to deal with, but someone, probably Miranda, would lose a lot of ABs. An uncomfortable situation. Baseball is a crazy game -- who ever thought we'd rather see Kody Clemens at the plate than Royce Lewis? 

[Mike Sixel]

30 minutes ago, Mahoning said:

One problem with sending Royce to AAA is that the Saints already have Jose Miranda and Eddie Julien stinking it up there. Not only would Toby Gardenhire have three flamed out big leaguers to deal with, but someone, probably Miranda, would lose a lot of ABs. An uncomfortable situation. Baseball is a crazy game -- who ever thought we'd rather see Kody Clemens at the plate than Royce Lewis? 

Royce at third, Miranda at first, Julien at 2nd. That's not hard. I don't know what to do with Royce at this point. I really don't, but there is not a bottleneck in AAA holding them back from sending him down.