There’s No Room for Royce Lewis

[tony&rodney]

1 hour ago, Twodogs said:

It would be interesting to see what Royce can do in a different organization?

Let's hope he gets the opportunity. Royce finding success elsewhere would never bother me. It hasn't happened for him as a Twin.

[Peter Gravett]

11 hours ago, Coach said:

Off the subject, Peter did you grow up on Berkman Ct.?

I did through age 3...

[Peter Gravett]

3 minutes ago, Peter Gravett said:

I did through age 3...

Coach, got some Berkman Ct. roots? That was about years ago!

[SE23]

1 hour ago, darin617 said:

What free agent are they going to find for the same money?

They will gain two things:

1. $5+ million to improve the roster

2. The absence of Royce Lewis going forward

 

[IndianaTwin]

9 hours ago, Eris said:

According to FanGraphs Lewis’ 2026 salary was 2.85 million. He projected to get a 2.3 million dollar raise in arbitration for being 20% below league average. Not sure if arbitration is really helping Lewis as a likely outcome is DFA. 

Which makes me wonder how accurate the $5.1M is. I get that MLBTR is often pretty good and we don’t have a better reference point, but I’m struck with how many people are treating this salary as gospel. 

I’m also struck with how similar this was to a year ago when the discussion was about Larnach, who was coming off a 0.2 bWAR year. The TD braintrust seemed to be about 90 percent on non-tendering.

Now much of the discussion seems to be trending that way on a guy with a 0.8 bWAR and who has always been considered more talented. 

[TL]

13 hours ago, JADBP said:

OR.....Bring up Houston ASAP.  Maybe by June?  He is a superb defender and if he can hit MLB pitching, watch out!  Move Pepper to 2B.  That frees up Clemens to platoon 1B with Royce--actually both become decent bench pieces. 

This highlights the only real downside of spending money on a FA second baseman - it’s hopefully Culpepper’s spot by mid-season. A platoon of Clemens and Lewis at 1B could work and they both provide at some flexibility to move around the diamond. 

Once Houston is up we shouldn’t have to worry about having bench players for CF or SS - they can move Jenkins/ERod and Culpepper over when injury strikes or the starters need a rest.

All that said, we may have just seen the best year (by far) Clemens will ever have and Lewis clearly can’t be counted on. If Jeffers doesn’t resign they will definitely need someone more dependable to hit in the middle of the lineup, which means 1B.

 

[stringer bell]

3 hours ago, MackMan said:

Lewis is a AAAA player similar to Rooker a few years ago.....

He has shown us who he is. He's a below average hitter who is a ball player from the neck up. 

Not sure what you mean by "from the neck up".  Did you mean the opposite?

As far as being compared to Rooker, well the athleticism and the ability to be acceptable in the field aren't comparable. 

[stringer bell]

15 hours ago, Greggory Masterson said:

I outlined how many teams do have a player like that on their bench—one who doesn't necessarily do one thing well but is only a half-step behind your average regular. The Twins have had guys very recently like Willi Castro and even Kyle Farmer (2023's version who could play shortstop and hit at a league-average level). The thing is that Lewis has no shown himself to be 2023 Kyle Farmer, and other than hoping they find the switch to get him to consistently play at a passable level, it's difficult to see how he becomes that.

No one would be salivating over adding 2023 Kyle Farmer to this team, but his OPS that year was 60 points higher than Lewis's last year, and he could play a premium defensive position passably well. He had twice the bWAR in about a third of the plate appearances. I would love a good fifth infielder being added to the mix. The issue is that that player is not Royce Lewis. Or at least it hasn't been in 30 months.

Just wanted to comment that the OP was a good, easy to understand, breakdown of Lewis' performance and value. 

[MackMan]

13 hours ago, Twodogs said:

Rooker hit 109 bombs in 4 years in Oakland.  Last year he only hit 10 in an injury plagued season where he only played 48 games.  But if you extrapolate that over 150 games and he hits 30 homeruns again.  Before last year Rooker hit 99 homeruns in 3 seasons.  He ended up being a lot better than  a AAAA player.  That makes me wonder do the Twins cause these guys to be AAAA players??  It would be interesting to see what Royce can do in a different organization?

I don't disagree with you. Clearly Rooker bouncing from the Padres to the Royals to A's opened something up to where he was finally able to tap into that power we were always told he had. 

I really do think it is something with our development at minor league level. I mean, they absolutely messed up Auston Martin's swing by trying to make him a power hitter. Then when he finally broke camp with the big league team, he was doing more of his stuff and it was playing...for a while. 

[HrbieFan]

On 11/11/2026 at 7:27 AM, DJL44 said:

His bat hasn’t been good enough for Double-A yet.

Look at what he is doing in the fall league, absolutely ripping the cover off the ball 

[tony&rodney]

13 minutes ago, HrbieFan said:

Look at what he is doing in the fall league, absolutely ripping the cover off the ball 

A ball pitching. The repetitions are good, the competition is not.

[Andy MacPhail]

If they are determined to keep Keaschal in the OF, Lewis should be their 1Bman. He has been disappointing but it looked like he figured it out before he ran out of gas. He's got the talent to be a pretty good MLBer. The only other option we have is to trade him & get nothing in return & then pay for an expensive broken down 2Bman. I'm not crazy about Clemens at 2B, but I have a different solution.

[Riverbrian]

Another thing to keep in mind. Prior to his being sent down to AAA. Royce had an OPS of .539. This number was influenced by a horrible May of .318 OPS. 

That is going to weight down his final 2026 number. 

When he returned... his OPS was .704 for the rest of the season. Creating the final .667

.704 still wasn't great but the .539 was improved upon when he came back. 

However... That .704 was strongly influenced by a real nice June. He produced a .841 OPS that month. 

He then watched that thing walk back straight down to a .559 in September. 

When he said... he doesn't do slumps. What he meant to say is... I do slumps.