Offseason Handbook: Brooks Lee Was Here... Can Twins Pin Their Hopes for 2025 on Him?

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The old saying in sports goes something like this. “A starter should not lose his job because of injury.” 

Vikings linebacker Blake Cashman joined the organization this offseason, playing for his home state team. He was leading the team in tackles, but he has missed time in recent weeks due to injury. When he comes back, it shouldn’t be as a bench player. He will come back and take over his spot. 

Karl Anthony Towns missed a lot of the 2023-2024 NBA season with injury, but as soon as he was healthy, he returned to the Minnesota Timberwolves starting lineup. 

Carlos Correa missed two months of the 2024 season with a second bout of plantar fasciitis. When he returned to the lineup, he was playing shortstop and batting in the middle of the Twins lineup. 

Similarly, the way an organization feels about a prospect should not change based solely on injury either. 

When Royce Lewis first tore his ACL a few years ago, it altered his timeline to the big leagues, but I can’t imagine anyone in the organization worrying about Lewis’s long-term future. When Miguel Sano and Alex Kirilloff missed seasons in the minor leagues due to Tommy John surgery, they remained top 20 global prospects. 

Likewise, Twins fans need to look beyond the offensive struggles of Brooks Lee in the big leagues in 2024. Yes, the numbers weren’t “good.” There is no denying that. 

In his first six big-league games, the Twins prospect went 11-for-24 (.458) with one double and one home run. Over his next 20 games, he went 14-for-75 (.187) with one double and one home run. He missed more time with injury, and he returned to play 24 games in September. He went 13-for-78 (.178), though he had four doubles, a triple, and a home run. 

Fortunately, that isn’t the full story of Brooks Lee, baseball player. As we all know, the Twins were thrilled when Lee fell to them with the eight-overall pick in the 2022 draft out of Cal-Poly, San Luis Obispo. The coach’s kid, he was called by many the most pure overall hitter in that year’s draft. 

After signing, he reached Double-A Wichita for their playoff run that season. That’s where he started the 2023 season, and when he was promoted to Triple-A later in the season, he was leading all Double-A hitters in doubles. In 125 combined games (between Double-A and Triple-A), he hit .275/.347/.461 (.808) with 39 homers, three triples, and 16 home runs. While his numbers in St. Paul dropped, it really was just the batting average. His walk rate dropped 1%, and his strikeout rate increased by 0.8% His Isolated Discipline and his Isolated Power both remained strong. In fairness, he appeared to be just months away from being big-league ready. 

He was invited to big-league spring training again and really impressed coaches and teammates. Unfortunately, just days before the start of the season, he was optioned to St. Paul. When the Saints announced their Opening Day roster, we saw Lee on the Injured List. 

Originally the injury was called back spasms. After further evaluation, he was diagnosed with a herniated disc. According to Twins Daily’s resident physical therapist Lucas Seehafer (click here to review much more detail on the particular injury and rehab), non-surgical recovery averages around six months. In baseball, there is a program that is designed for eight weeks. 

Lee worked through that program, and began a rehab assignment on May 20th. He played five games in the Florida Complex League. Then he played five rehab games for Low-A Fort Myers. On June 5, he returned to the Saints. 

In 20 games, he hit .329/.394/.635 (1.029) with five doubles and seven home runs. He appeared to be back in form. At that point, Royce Lewis was injured and Lee was promoted to the big leagues. On July 3rd, he made his debut. 

After those first six games, it was a struggle for the talented switch-hitter. He wasn’t himself at the plate, His walk rate dropped to just 5.9% His strikeout rate dropped just under 15% 

The goal isn’t to walk, but it is to have an approach at the plate where you don’t go outside of the zone and attack strikes. It’s an example of the phrase that a player needs for the game to slow down. You hear about that with quarterbacks often. The pass rushers get to him a lot quicker. Holes that he easily ran through in college close much quicker. And open receivers just don’t stay open quite as long. How a quarterback responds to the changes and how quickly he can slow the game down in his mind, the better. 

How quickly can Brooks Lee slow the game down? His reputation as a professional hitter, even long before he was actually a professional hitter speaks to his ability to make adjustments. Unfortunately, because his season was broken apart by a two-month injury at the beginning of the season, and another month of missed time meant that he never really got real extended, consecutive time to make needed adjustment. 

In 2011, Mike Trout played in his first 40 games with the Angels. He hit .220/.281/.390 (.672) with 11 extra base hits in 135 plate appearances. Fair to see that the game slowed down for him the next year when he was an All Star, Silver Slugger, the AL Rookie of the Year, and finished second in MVP voting. 

That was Trout’s Age-19 season. 2024 was Brooks Lee’s Age-23, so we aren’t comparing apples to apples. But it’s important to point out that you certainly can’t judge a player's career and potential by their first 40 or 50 games, good or bad. 

What Would I Do? 
Let’s just pretend for a moment that Derek Falvey hired me as an assistant general manager. On Day 1, my responsibility was to make a case for one transaction for this offseason. 

For me, I would try to lock up Brooks Lee to a long-term contract. The comparison I would use would be the contract that the Detroit Tigers signed Colt Keith to a year ago. 

Colt Keith was the fifth round pick of the Tigers in the 2020 draft out of high school in Biloxi, Mississippi. Always a solid prospect, Keith made big strides in 2023. That season, Keith, like Lee, split the season between Double-A and Triple-A. It’s fair to say that Keith arrived in Triple-A about six weeks before Lee did. In 126 games combined, he hit .306/.380/.552 (.932) with 38 doubles, three triples, and 27 home runs. 

Before the 2024 season, Colt Keith ranked in the top 30 overall prospects by Baseball America (#28), MLB Pipeline (#22), and Baseball Prospectus (#22). Brooks Lee ranked #35 at Baseball America, #18 at MLB Pipeline, and #52 at Baseball Prospectus. 

Before the start of this season, the Tigers and Keith agreed to a six-year, $28,642,500 deal that includes options for up to three more seasons. If those are picked up, it would be worth up to about $65 million over nine years. He got a $2 million signing bonus. He made $2.5 million in 2024, $3.5 million in 2025. He will make $4 million in both 2026 and 2027. Then he’ll make $5 million in 2028 and 2029. 

The minimum salary in MLB was up to $740,000 in 2024 (he got $4.5 million). The minimum salary moves up to $760,000 in 2025 and to $780,000 in 2026. Instead of making about $2.4 million over those first three years, he will make $12 million over that time. Then for his three arbitration seasons, he will play for a combined $14 million. If things go well, they could make $4-10 million more than that. But then the Tigers will have options to keep him for up to three of his free agent seasons at very reasonable amounts. 

Because of that signing, the Tigers called Keith up to the big-leagues for Opening Day and kept him up all season. In 148 games, he hit .260/.309/.380 (.689) with 15 doubles, four triples and 13 home runs. He played second base. He walked just 6.5% of his plate appearances and struck out 19.8% of the time.

It was a year of ups and downs. He hit .154 with a .387 OPS in March/April. Then in May he hit .343 with a .881 OPS in May. In June, he hit .220 with a .567 OPS. Then in July he hit .322 with a 1.048 OPS. In that month, he hit seven of his 13 home runs. Then his OPS was .628 and .664 in September/October. 

If Brooks Lee is open to a similarly-constructed contract signed by Colt Keith, I would sign it, feel great about it and hand him the Twins second base job. Lee’s track record of offensive prowess is much longer than Keith’s, and if they believe in him like they have said all along that they believe about him, the contract would pay for itself with a solid Return on Investment. Let him work through any of those ups and downs. 

How concerned are you about the rookie struggles of Brooks Lee? How do you see him fitting into the Twins plans moving forward? Is the idea of locking him up to a long-term contract logical at this point?