To say that Royce Lewis had an exciting 2023 season would be an understatement. The former top prospect re-established himself as a core component of the Minnesota Twins’ future, after returning from his second ACL tear in as many years and continuing right where he left off. Specifically, he hit the crap out of the ball. However, there might be more room for explosiveness.
Although he did not qualify for any awards due to his limited plate appearances, Royce Lewis ranked in the top 10 percent of all MLB hitters in maximum exit velocity (114.0 mph) and Barrels per plate appearance (7.9%), meaning he has near-elite raw power and an ability to find the ball with his barrel. Lewis’s bat-to-ball skills resulted in 15 home runs and a massive .920 OPS in only 239 plate appearances, one of the highest home run rates per plate appearance in baseball.
However, looking under the hood, it’s fair to be skeptical about Lewis’s 2023 power output. For starters, a 6.3% home run per plate appearance rate is elite. For context, Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña Jr. tallied 735 plate appearances last summer. Had Lewis maintained his power output across Acuña’s volume, he would have mashed 46 home runs, which would have tied for third in MLB with the Mets’ Pete Alonso.
Additionally, Lewis’s underlying hard-hit data leaves something to be desired. His 42% hard-hit rate was 132nd out of 343 batters with at least 150 batted ball events, and his Sweet Spot percentage—which tracks balls hit with a launch angle between 8 and 32 degrees—was only 33.3%, which would have ranked well below average.
So while Lewis has the raw power to hit balls very hard, he’s not able to tap into a full share of that power consistently, or at the optimal launch angle to maximize extra-base hits and home runs. This highlights how impressive his 15 home runs were last summer, while also showing that there was a bit of luck and small-sample noise involved.
It may be worth discussing a couple of the biomechanical variances between Lewis and Acuña’s swings, to highlight how they differ and also to suggest minor tweaks Lewis could implement to increase his power profile.
Let’s start by looking at each swing in slow motion. First, here's Lewis:
I purposely chose videos in which both batters faced off against middle-in sliders that resulted in home runs. This allows us to see how each batter attacks these offerings and how their swings differ, despite having similar outcomes.
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Lucas Seehafer is a professor and physical therapist living in southern Minnesota. He holds a PhD in Kinesiology and serves as a sports science consultant for college athletes.
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