Taking Charge: How Royce Lewis Unlocked His Defensive Potential

[Peter Labuza]

Image courtesy of © Matt Blewett-Imagn Images

It’s another slow grounder. Brady House topped the ball only four feet and it’s bouncing with a little charge to third. The Washington Nationals rookie dashes toward first, and his speed ensures he’ll be safe on the sloppy hit.

But Royce Lewis charges into the ball. His run to the ball from playing more toward third looks like he’s drifting in Mario Kart from the speed on his circular angle. He gets to the ball just as its reaching third base and lashes his arm out to dart it across the infield to Ty France. At first, House is called safe. But Joey Casey's eagle eyes see something different, and it’s overturned.

As the Twins debated their offseason choices in 2024, many threw out the idea that Lewis was likely destined out of his position. His first two seasons, even with smaller than desired sample sizes, suggested him as a capable but certainly not stellar infielder, positing positive Outs Above Average but nowhere near the likes of Matt Chapman and Ryan McMahon, to name some of the best graded defensive players. Rumors swirled near the end of next season that he could be switched to second, and even played a game there when things got desperate. 

But at least to the naked eye, Lewis has looked different this year. More athletic, more quick to the ball. The throws look way more in line. The analytics support him. After posting either negative or neutral defensive fWAR, he now has 3.0 — more than his now former shortstop counterpart Carlos Correa. His DRS went from negative to positive and now ranks 10th in Outs Above Average. Even in a recent press conference, Rocco Baldelli praised the recent changes in Lewis’s footwork and timing rather than his arm.

But beyond a plethora of great plays, how can we really understand how Lewis is making different plays? As we all know, advanced stats when it come to defense seem to capture the overall picture but rarely the details of what might be creating a defensive titan in the making. What types of plays is Lewis doing differently?

According to Statcast data, Lewis on average moved back this season by a few feet while moving just slightly closer to the third base line. That's set him up for a kind of play he used to flounder at: the charge. We're talking slow rollers and ugly bouncers to third, the kind that are more accidental in nature than intended by the batters. These balls require everything: infield hustle, a good one handed grab, and an accurate throw to beat a fast first basemen, And as other Twins players have seen a dip in their defense, Lewis has transformed himself to one of the best in the game.

To try and quantify this, I wanted to take every infield ball hit toward Lewis. But not every ball is the same. A 101mph screamer requires a big leap rather than a charge. While Statcast has data for fielding, it can't tell us much about the trajectory of the ball, or where the fielder even started.

To understand charges, I looked at every ball hit to third base but needed to create limitations. First, any line outs or pop outs were eliminated, leaving only ground balls. Secondly, the ball needed to be hit in a way to require the third baseman to charge it down. That required combining two data sets. The first was any ground ball under 70mph off the bat. This accounted for bunts as well as softly hit balls where the third basemen often needed to come toward the ball rather than stay put. The second took any ball over 70mph, but at a launch angle of -30 degree. This accounted for accidental bouncers, the kind smashed into the ground. Not all of them are fair to chargers like Lewis—or any other third basemen defender—but a majority of them are. (One of the hits charged as a single to Lewis this year was a ball grounded into the air only to pop up 25 feet in the air; the only thing Lewis could do was wait for it to come back to Earth).

What makes a successful charge? Any ground out to get the batter at first was obviously a success. I also decided any sacrifice bunt—a play where the batter was out at first (even if they advanced the runner)—was a successful charge. Any other out or the start of a double play counted too; if the basemen had to go for the ball and ensured an out in doing so, they were doing something right. Only errors or hits were considered unsuccessful.

To get a sense what makes a good charger, here are the 2024 statistics, focusing on third basemen with at least 30 plays—good or bad—in a year. I eliminated everyone in the 70% range to highlight the top and bottom of the list to give the sense of the range.

Player	Charge Attempts	Charge Rate
Jared Triolo	47	87.2%
Ke'Bryan Hayes	73	84.9%
Jordan Westburg	41	82.9%
Matt Chapman	140	82.9%
Brett Baty	33	81.8%
Gio Urshela	74	81.1%
Enrique Hernandez	52	80.8%
Oswaldo Cabrera	62	80.6%
Abraham Toro	36	80.6%
Ernie Clement	61	80.3%
Lenyn Sosa	36	69.4%
Mark Vientos	79	68.4%
Ramon Urias	50	68.0%
Ryan Mcmahon	112	67.0%
Royce Lewis	39	66.7%
Jake Burger	53	66.0%
Jose Miranda	46	65.2%
Christopher Morel	51	64.7%
Jeimer Candelario	36	61.1%

 

As we can see, some of the more familiar names in defensive accrue near the top, including Ky’brian Hayes and old friend Gio Urshela. Notably, two names appear near the bottom, Lewis and Jose Miranda. Of course, Miranda eventually found himself at third base, and his suboptimal offense has essentially played himself out of the majors. 

Lewis had struggled at charging in his previous two seasons, posting an equally dismal 65% in 2023. Here's a representative play:

 

This was ruled a single rather than an error. But as we see here, properly fielding the ball does not necessarily result in a better result:

It’s worth noting Lewis learned third base entirely on the fly. Lewis played over 2,600 innings in the minor leagues as a shortstop. He played a total of 79 innings at third before becoming his cemented position in the majors. More so, Lewis himself noted that he was often limited in his practice. “All my injuries have been lower body, so I can’t go out there and take ground balls.” Lewis often wanted to rely on his arm to do the work rather than the body.

During the offseason, Lewis studied tape of players like Chapman and Nolan Arenado. As Bobby Nightengale reported, Lewis noticed how often they used their bodies rather than relying on “maximum-effort throws despite their cannon arms.” He worked with Michael Cuddyer and finally found the style that worked for him. As he told the media in the spring, “I feel like a true shortstop playing third base.”

Lewis now sits at the top of the leaderboard in Charge Rate this season for those with at least 30 attempts:

Player	Charge Attempts	Charge Rate
Royce Lewis	38	86.8%
Ernie Clement	30	86.7%
Joshua Jung	47	85.1%
Yoan Moncada	33	84.8%
Alex Bregman	59	84.7%
Austin Riley	72	83.3%
Ke'Bryan Hayes	92	81.5%
Luis Rengifo	45	80.0%
Ramon Urias	44	79.5%
Brett Baty	39	79.5%
Nolan Arenado	73	79.5%
Alec Bohm	61	78.7%
Maikel Garcia	70	78.6%
Matt Shaw	51	78.4%
Eugenio Suarez	77	77.9%
Matt Chapman	95	77.9%

Now, 38 attempts is minimal compared to the number of defensive plays that Chapman and Hayes put up in an average season. But still, as this montage shows, it's been an impressive step up:

 

For Lewis, it begins with the routes. His throws still show off his arm, but the throwing errors have gone from six to zero (one of three players at third with over 400 IP to remain errorless on throws). But what works is that the flow looks right. Watch the following play: the camera can’t even tell us where Lewis is running from, but he makes a perfect route with the momentum that the throw itself becomes an afterthought:

In fact, if we look at the Twins over the last few years, we can see how much he has cemented himself as one of the team's top third basemen, especially as others have seen their defense slip. 

 

Twins Player	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Josh Donaldson	78.8%
Willians Astudillo	55.6%
Luis Arráez	79.2%	75.0%
Gio Urshela		72.9%
Jose Miranda		66.7%	80.6%	65.2%	44.4%
Donovan Solano			66.7%
Kyle Farmer			95.0%	80.0%
Jorge Polanco			60.0%
Willi Castro			65.2%	80.0%
Brooks Lee				90.9%	56.5%
Royce Lewis			65.6%	66.7%	86.8%
Jonah Bride					88.9%

Lewis’s future with the Twins feels uncertain as much with the team. He’s been forced into a quasi-leadership role despite how little he’s played in the majors. But the fact that he’s become a master of charging shows something special about him. Lewis has spent his entire career adapting to challenges, both see and unforeseen. And as he charges toward the ball, he can now charge the team forward.

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[jmlease1]

Hopefully this is a good trend towards good consistent defense from Royce at 3B. Overall he seems to be passing the eye test over there, so it's good to see some statistical information that lend credence to it. It's been much less concerning to see Royce charging in on a ball this season and then unleashing a throw to 1B; in 2024 we really needed Carlos Santana over there! (while France was disappointing overall, I do think he did a nice job at making scoops) But it's still less of a feeling you're in the line of fire for anyone sitting up the 1B line this year?

At the end of the day, Royce is going to have to hit to stick, but he's starting to look like a quality defensive option at 3B again after a very wobbly defensive season in 2024.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

It certainly does look like Royce’s defense has taken a turn upwards.  Nature of defensive statistics/small sample size/et al means we need to see a bit more to be sure, but I like this as a step in the right direction.  Now the bat. . . . Hmmmmm. . . 

[rdehring]

Interesting.  Thanks.

[RpR]

He looks a lot better but his throws to first are still lower than they should be.

[bunsen82]

Anyway to unlock his ability to hit the outside pitch to the opposite field that whiffing at a consistent rate? 

[nclahammer]

Great write up TD, Lewis is certainly passing the eye test at 3B and this backs it up.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

Fascinating article with outstanding stats and great videos to illustrate the article. Thank you, Peter. This is one of the best articles I have read on TD this year.

[PatPfund]

Trying to make judgement calls on a young player's defensive ability when they are new to MLB, being shifted around (SS, 3B, 2B), while constantly recovering from leg issues that hinder everything from range to footwork to your throwing foundation is a sketchy business. Lewis is a good athlete, healthy, and not surprisingly playing better with the focus on one position. I expect Lee's defensive numbers will go up the rest of this year as the Twins stop bouncing him around and letting him focus on one position (hopefully his batting improves, too). (One of my biggest Rocco gripes is the way he can't keep from trying to turn every young player into a Punto or Castro. Austin Martin in particular is someone who could use positional focus; OF IMO.)

[CRF]

Now...if he could only hit!

[thelanges5]

Seems telling that he was chosen to pinch run and not pinch hit in the 10th yesterday. Choosing instead to have Gasper, Fitz, and Martin bat. One of the weirder Rocco decisions I’ve seen in a while.
 

Not sure he’ll be able to put it all together while playing with the big club so I’m hoping he can figure it out in the off-season. Royce should be part of the core moving forward but only if he can hit and field. 

[Linus]

Thanks for this article. Lots of info. Royce has improved in the field. I don’t really trust fielding metrics but even something as basic as no throwing errors is illustrative. I would deem him average and hopefully he goes up from there. As others have pointed out he has to hit. 

[Trov]

No if only he can start swinging like he did in years past. 

[Derojo]

Good news! Perhaps he'll get comfortable with his defense. Next year he can regain his batting form.

[tony&rodney]

I'm not seeing what you see.

[stringer bell]

It's hard to trust small sample sizes and defensive metrics, but Lewis certainly looks better than last year at third base. I've commented that his Baseball Savant page looks pretty good (lots of red). 

[Bodie]

18 hours ago, bunsen82 said:

Anyway to unlock his ability to hit the outside pitch to the opposite field that whiffing at a consistent rate? 

Word is that Torii Hunter has figured out how to lay off the (very) low slider...

Some things change.  Some things need to change.  Sometimes they just don't!

[Doctor Wu]

18 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

Fascinating article with outstanding stats and great videos to illustrate the article. Thank you, Peter. This is one of the best articles I have read on TD this year.

I agree, Very interesting article. This adds a LOT to my knowledge and perception of Lewis as a third baseman. TD is a great source for increasing my knowledge about these sorts of fielding stats. Thank you!

[JD-TWINS]

He just looks more athletic and quicker than I recall in any of previous couple seasons. Health is a big deal & some development work has helped. To me, he just looks like a much sharper and more capable defender regardless of the stats …….. having stats be positive as well, this seems to prove the positive eye test makes sense. Great to see!