The Twins Can't Wait Any Longer to Bring Back Royce Lewis

[bean5302]

4 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

Royce Lewis has been a professional baseball player since he was 18 years old. He's now 27. If he hasn't picked up where the 1B goes for backing up fielders or cuts or anything like that by now, he's never going to figure it out. He's been on a professional baseball field thousands of times. If he doesn't pay enough attention, especially as a SS, to know where everybody goes on the field, that's on him and is a major flaw in a wanna be leader. You don't think Correa can tell you where every player on the field is supposed to be on every play? He's never played 1B, but I'll bet my life's savings he knows exactly where the 1B should be on every play.

Every team moves guys around every year and they don't all suck at defense. The Twins suck at defense because they have a bunch of guys who don't have the skills to play MLB level defense. Tatis Jr moved from SS to CF/RF as a 22-year-old with no minor league experience and won the gold glove in his next season. Jackson Merrill had never played a game of CF before he showed up in spring training as a 20-year-old and debuted at that position on opening day. And played it well. Luis Gonzalez never played an inning of baseball in the grass until he was a rookie in the majors and they moved him to LF from 1B/3B. Mookie Betts moved to the OF when he was about to debut because the Red Sox had an MVP at 2B. Xander Bogaerts had never played an inning of professional baseball at 2B until he got to San Diego as a 31-year-old and they moved him there. Marcus Semien has 2 gold gloves despite playing 2B, SS, 3B, and LF in the minors. Paul Molitor played SS, 2B, 3B, CF, RF, LF, and 1B in the majors. Wait, that's every non-catching or pitching position there is, right? And he turned out alright. Manny Machado won a gold glove his first full season. At 3B. A position he played 18 innings of in the minors before he debuted in the majors at it.

The joke is pretending that asking professional baseball players to play other positions has a significant impact on anything. Ozzie Smith could've slid to 2B or 3B and still been a wizard with the glove. Julien's inability to field 2B is because he lacks the feet and hands to field that, or any, position. Not because it wasn't the only position he played in the minors. Bryce Harper grew up a catcher, switched to RF in the pros, and then to 1B after an injury. He's been a solid fielder in both right and first. Bo Bichette is bad at SS, 3B, and 2B. Because he's a bad fielder, not because they moved him from SS to another position. ARod was a good fielder at both SS and 3B. He didn't fall apart because he didn't know the intricacies of 3B when he went to the Yankees. Jorge Polanco has played all over and that wasn't why he wasn't/isn't a great fielder. It's because he doesn't have all the skills needed to be a great fielder. 

Even Joe Mauer struggled to learn 1B. One of the most gifted athletes in the history of modern sports. It took Mauer 3 years at the position, a position he started playing after he was already well established as a likely Hall of Famer and after he'd won a few gold gloves at catcher before he was good at playing first base.

I find your position to be filled with so much hubris it's difficult to accept you're not trolling.

 

[chpettit19]

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Even Joe Mauer struggled to learn 1B. One of the most gifted athletes in the history of modern sports. It took Mauer 3 years at the position, a position he started playing after he was already well established as a likely Hall of Famer and after he'd won a few gold gloves at catcher before he was good at playing first base.

I find your position to be filled with so much hubris it's difficult to accept you're not trolling.

 

Who says it took Joe Mauer 3 years to be good at first? Joe Mauer was a passable 1B the second he stepped over there. Not to mention that if your best argument is naming a guy who played the 1 non-pitcher position that is essentially entirely unrelated to the other 7, that's not very impressive. 

You have any examples of guys who came up as SS (like the subject of this article, Royce Lewis) who were significantly worse defenders at another IF spot than they were at SS?

[greglw333]

8 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Royce is so much better at baseball than Sabato it is ridiculous.

That's a bold statement for a guy that has a .163 batting average in MLB this year vs a guy who’s got about a .960 OPS for a large sample in AAA. I’d bet that Sabato hits much higher than .163 in the majors.

[greglw333]

8 hours ago, chpettit19 said:

The weaknesses Royce needs to work on are absolutely things that can be worked on in AAA. Going the other way and laying off pitches out of the zone are things he can work on against AAA pitching. That's an approach and mentality thing. It's actually what the minors are best built for. It's arguably the most important part of minor league coaching staff's jobs. "This is working here, but it won't work when you get to the next level or 2" is the story coaches have to sell to just about every prospect who walks in their clubhouse.

It's why Kyler Fedko isn't in the majors. It's why McCrusher was never used even when he was called up. It's why Sabato is never really going to get a shot. It's why guy after guy is kept in the minors. This is what the minors are for and what the front office and coaches get paid for. They absolutely will never get it completely correct, but they need to be pretty good at knowing what works in the majors and whether or not a guy is truly doing that in the minors. Royce can adjust his approach against AAA pitching. He just doesn't look like he has any intention of doing that. And, yes, that's a very real problem.

That's the best take I’ve read, those last 3 sentences. That’s the crux of it.

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, greglw333 said:

That's a bold statement for a guy that has a .163 batting average in MLB this year vs a guy who’s got about a .960 OPS for a large sample in AAA. I’d bet that Sabato hits much higher than .163 in the majors.

Royce has been crushing pitchers who have no trouble getting Sabato out. Plus, Sabato has trouble fielding ground balls hit directly at him and can’t get to anything more than a step away.

[jorgenswest]

I really don’t think partial season slash stats from St. Paul give insight to major league success. The sample in season is far too small and the run scoring context of St. Paul distorts them further.  I would hope they are not a key consideration as the Twins front office considers a players readiness. I would think the swing level data is valuable particularly if they can correlate to pitch shape/spin. How many major league quality pitches are these players seeing and how well are they managing the zone when they see them? I have no idea.

[DocBauer]

The whole OP kinda took off while I was at work today, so bear with me if I repeat a couple thoughts.

I don't really care if Lewis is BB a ton. He wasn't sent to St Paul to work on coaxing BB from AAA pitchers. He's there to develop a better approach, and better swing. A hitter is supposed to hit when he can. However, I AM concerned about his K %. BB can show he's developing a better approach, and not just swinging at everything, but he's SUPPOSED to swing at strikes he can do something with. So while I'm not panicking, I do question his current K numbers.

When he hit a double the other day, i was more encouraged by that than some if the HR he's hit. 

I have no problem with another week or two at St Paul for the organization to believe he's locked in to a better approach, and smoother stroke. This is about Royce's future, and the Twins, and I don't think he NEEDS to be up tomorrow.

I think he can be a quality 2B. But I'm also not willing to just give up in Keaschall there just yet either. While there are nuances to playing 1B for sure, an athlete who has spent years fielding ground balls and chasing pop ups on the left side of the INF shouldn't have that difficult a time just fielding grounders and making solid scoop plays at 1B. He needs to prepare for the basics, and learn the subtleties as he goes.

But it's all for naught if he can't get his approach and swing figured out.