The Brooks Lee Third Base Era is Beginning

[Greggory Masterson]

Image courtesy of Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

On Friday, May 22nd, in Boston, Brooks Lee played a position other than shortstop for the first time since July 28th, 2025. Carlos Correa, the Twins’ starting shortstop between 2022 and mid-2025, left the following day’s game with a migraine and never played a game for Minnesota again. Since July 29th, Lee has started at shortstop in 95 games. But those days may be close to being over.

There are a number of factors at play here. First, Lee himself. When Lee was drafted eighth overall in 2022, scouts believed he could be a serviceable MLB shortstop, with a pro arm and sure hands, but a lack of range. Since then, his defensive outlook has diminished, and it has felt like Lee has been asked to play shortstop out of necessity. He has turned in some good plays, but he seems overmatched, with -8 outs above average (OAA) in 1,193 innings at the position, and -5 OAA just this season alone (390 innings).

He’s graded out at second and third base as an approximately average-to-slightly-below-average fielder, and one of those two positions is likely where he needs to settle if he wants a multi-year career as a starting player. However, to this point, Minnesota has relied on him at shortstop due to a dearth of other options.

Tristan Gray, the team’s utility infielder through the first two months of the 2026 season, is a 30-year-old out of his athletic prime who can play some shortstop but shouldn’t be counted on as the team’s everyday shortstop, nor has he been playing every day at any position. However, the team recently called up another utility infielder, Ryan Kreidler, who has a much different profile than Gray.

Kreidler, despite his hot start at the plate (.313/.405/.656 with 3 home runs in 37 plate appearances), is not a good hitter. He’s been among the worst hitters in baseball during his five-year MLB career. However, he’s a bona fide shortstop. Prior to Friday’s game, he had played five games in center field and five games at third base, only starting at shortstop in a game Lee did not play.

Friday, though, he played shortstop, the position where he’s most valuable, for the first time getting precedence over Lee. And Saturday, he started at the hot corner again. In fact, on the broadcast, Cory Provus noted that the club has made it clear that Lee will spend a lot of time at third in the near future.

This alignment makes the most of both players’ skill sets when both are on the dirt. Kreidler is the best shortstop on the team, so it makes sense to play him at the toughest position. Lee has a profile best served at third base, given his lack of range. Honestly, the Twins’ third utility infielder, Orlando Arcia, should also get precedence over Lee at short.

Neither Kreidler nor Arcia nor Gray is likely to be the long-term answer at shortstop, though. Instead, this move also appears to be clearing a path for Twins Daily’s #2 prospect, shortstop Kaelen Culpepper, to make his debut in the not-so-distant future. Culpepper, the 21st overall pick in 2024, has been heating up at Triple-A St. Paul over the last few weeks, with an OPS over .900 over the past month.

Culpepper started the season slowly, getting his first taste of Triple-A pitching this season. He’s also bounced around the diamond this spring, but two-thirds of his appearances have been at shortstop. Culpepper is more athletic and rangy than Lee with a plus arm, though there are questions about whether he has enough range to cut it as an MLB shortstop long-term. If he’s merely average, though, he’s a better option than Lee. Jamie Cameron wrote a great profile on Culpepper earlier this month that I encourage you to read.

Long-term, the Twins probably hope a player like Twins Daily's #7 prospect Marek Houston will take over shortstop duties and move Culpepper to second or third base, but by all indications, the Twins seem to prefer Culpepper over Lee at short, necessitating a move to third (or second) base at some point for the three-year veteran.

And the Twins recently reduced their 40-man roster to 39, designating Luis Garcia for assignment Saturday morning, which opens the door to add Culpepper to both the active and 40-man roster without much resistance.

There’s another name at play, though—the reason third base is open for Lee to play, at least sporadically for now. Royce Lewis, the Twins’ starting third baseman (when healthy) since 2023, was demoted to Triple-A earlier this week after mustering just a .539 OPS in his first 119 plate appearances of 2026.

For the foreseeable future, he will be in St. Paul (which also cuts into Culpepper’s time playing positions beyond shortstop), leaving major league playing time available at third base. It’d be a bit surprising if Lee exclusively played third for the time being, though the Twins don't currently have a player who plays third but doesn't play shortstop on their roster.

It’s unclear whether—or if—Lewis will return to major-league action, or at what position. As bad as Lee has looked early this season at shortstop, Lewis looked as bad or worse at third base. It’s possible that Lewis, along with getting his hitting back on track, may need to learn to play another position to get back up to the majors, but that conversation is months away.

As a caveat, the Twins have another struggling infielder—Luke Keaschall—to worry about. Perhaps Lee or Culpepper (or Arcia or Gray) might also be asked to man the keystone at some point, which complicates this analysis. But for right now, it looks like we’re in the early stages of Brooks Lee’s short tenure as Minnesota’s shortstop coming to an unceremonious end, and the newly-vacated hot corner is as good a place as any to let him settle in, so long as he shows something at the plate*.

*it’s unclear that he’s shown enough at the plate yet

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[mikelink45]

Luke has been 5 - 15 in last five games and his average is rising.  Too early to list him in this article.  Brooks at third looks like a good move.  Getting Culpepper up soon sounds good too.  We need defense.  

[dxpavelka]

Give Lewis a first baseman's mitt at St. Paul and when he comes back up the IF goes Lewis, Keaschall, Lee, Culpepper.  Laminate the card.  At least until Mendez forces his way into the discussion.  

[FlyingFinn]

The pitchers are happy when they see Buxton in CF, Kreidler at SS and Lee at 3B, rather than Martin in CF, Lee at SS and Lewis at 3B.

[strumdatjag]

15 minutes ago, dxpavelka said:

Give Lewis a first baseman's mitt at St. Paul and when he comes back up the IF goes Lewis, Keaschall, Lee, Culpepper.  Laminate the card.  At least until Mendez forces his way into the discussion.  

Good idea, but only if Royce Lewis can build on his good hitting over the last two games with the Saints. 

[nova_twins]

Lee has long been seen as likely to play 2B or 3B, the Lewis situation gave them an easy way to make the transition. Just will come down to the bat.

[Linus]

The real question with Lee is not what position he will play. The real question is will he ever be a good enough hitter to be a mlb caliber starter. He has to hit better or he will become a utility guy. 

[Matthew Trueblood]

9 minutes ago, Linus said:

The real question with Lee is not what position he will play. The real question is will he ever be a good enough hitter to be a mlb caliber starter. He has to hit better or he will become a utility guy. 

And, since he's not really good defensively at any spot and has no speed, not even that. He has to hit to be a big-leaguer at all.

[Matthew Trueblood]

20 minutes ago, nova_twins said:

Lee has long been seen as likely to play 2B or 3B, the Lewis situation gave them an easy way to make the transition. Just will come down to the bat.

It's a bit interesting that they waited until Tristan Gray left for paternity leave to do it, though. I wonder if Lee will slide back to short (for a bit) once Gray returns, or whether it'll now be Gray and Kreidler alternating at short with Lee at third.

[miller761]

Give Royce a shot at 1B in St. Paul.

[HeresWaldo]

Defensive metrics are tricky to evaluate. Even setting aside questions about how they're calculated, teams value defense so highly these days that the sport doesn't really have bad defenders anymore so "average" keeps getting better. The bar for what plays are supposed to be routine keeps going up. I'm glad Lee's days as a shortstop are coming to an end but I do wonder what the metrics will say about him at 3rd. He strikes me as the kind of player who will look really good there but stats won't like because he isn't fast and everyone not playing 1st or DH is fast now. 

[Matthew Trueblood]

1 hour ago, miller761 said:

Give Royce a shot at 1B in St. Paul.

Versatility never hurts but Royce needs such an offensive overhaul. Why complicate it by asking him to learn a new position that also puts more pressure on the bat?

I already thought demoting him was a head start on sending him somewhere (anywhere?) else this summer, but moving Lee to third so soon after they did it only increases my conviction about that.

[twinstalker]

What I see happening is the Twins trying to optimize things for this year.  Lewis and Wallner are down, Keaschall has reduced ABs, Lee is moved.

The fan in me thinks that makes sense, except the bullpen is cr@p, the rotation will be very thin, the catchers can't hit, and the one thing the Twins can do about that is to hold on to Ryan, which would be the dumb thing to do.  Even knowing that they'd get killed by another playoff team, the race for the playoffs makes the season fun and seemingly more meaningful.

The cynic in me knows this team has no chance.  They're trying to fool the fans for as long as possible until they fall apart due to inevitable injuries, slowdown, and regression for some of the surprises.  They can only hit in CF and, for now, in the corner outfield.  The utility guys (Kreidler, Gray, and Arcia) are not anything but what they are, and they will settle in to a .225 average as a group with modest power and little on-base.  Lee needs to play every day, Keaschall needs to play every day, in Lee's case to see if there's anything there.  The Twins need to trade Ryan and Jeffers, Ryan because his trade value drops substantially if you don't deal him by the deadline.  Also, he'll almost inevitably get hurt, and we just saw how that can happen with both him and even Jeffers.

I saw yesterday the Twins, empirically, have a 15% chance to make the playoffs.  That doesn't account for what's bound to happen to this team that will not or cannot be fixed, like losing Prielipp from the rotation (due to innings limitations) or just normal injuries.  So if it's truly a 5-10% chance, that's definitely not enough to change the overriding strategy.