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Brooks Lee has faithfully traversed the path the Twins laid out before him when he was selected eighth overall in the 2022 MLB Draft. His ready-made professional skill set (with few unique strengths and few real weaknesses) has guided him to the doorstep of the majors in two short professional seasons.
To assess what an impactful 2024 Brooks Lee looks like, digging into his minor-league numbers, his scouting report, and skill set is a great jumping-off point. Lee is a switch-hitting shortstop whose swing looks more polished from the left side of the plate (more on this later). In a roughly 40-game sample at Triple A in 2023, Lee demonstrated many of the strengths that made him such a highly regarded prospect in his class. He managed a 76.3% contact rate (3.1% above league average), a 90.6 mph average exit velocity (3.2 mph above league average), and hit the ball at or above 95 mph 48% of the time (league average 36.2%). That’s a promising platform of bat-to-ball skills and quality of contact.
There are some critical and inextricably linked questions that need answering when prognosticating Lee’s 2024 impact. Where is his playing time going to come from? What position will he play defensively? The answers will govern the magnitude of the value he can produce. Let’s start with playing time.
There are two variables that will impact Lee’s 2024 playing time; injuries on the MLB roster, and his performance at Triple A. Lee had an uneven start to his time at St. Paul, but he had enough playing time at the level to see better stuff, get a clear understanding of adjustments that need to be made before working on them in the offseason. In a recent radio interview for MLB Network Radio, Thad Levine stated that ‘when he (Lee) tells us he’s ready to go, we’re going to get him up to the big leagues’. One possibility is Lee is crushing it at one end of the Green Line and forcing his way to the other.
Another, more likely possibility is that Lee is given his first shot at the big leagues because of an injury. The 2023 Twins were infinitely more lucky than the 2022 team health-wise. Lee could follow the path of Edouard Julien and get short stints throughout the first half of the season, allowing for an adjustment period until his performance dictates he is in Minneapolis to stay.
Defensively, it’s unlikely Lee plays shortstop for the Twins, barring an even more serious injury to Carlos Correa than the one that spoiled his 2023 campaign. Even then, Royce Lewis may slide over from third base. 'Yeah all over...he's gonna play short and second or third', relayed Twins manager Rocco Baldelli to reporters of Lee's defensive position this spring. While Lee has good instincts and defensive actions at the position, second or third base seem the likely fit. With the Twins seemingly keen on giving Lee a run at some defensive consistency, playing the majority of his defensive innings at second base (either via a Julien injury or a transition to first base for the Quebecois) seems the most likely. The good news is that Lee has the defensive profile (actions, quickness, arm) to be an upgrade at the position--at worst, above average. So what does Lee need to accomplish offensively to be deemed ‘ready’?
Lee struck out at a 16.7% clip in Triple A (level average 22.4%), which is great, but he walked just 8.9% of the time (level average 12%; the automated strike zone was tiny). These rates help us arrive at our first area that needs polishing for Lee: his chase rate. Lee expanded the zone too much, chasing at a 34.7% rate (level average 27.1%). Despite Lee’s strong exit velocity and hard-hit numbers, he underperformed his expected rate stats at Triple A (.428 SLG, .468 xSLG). Lee will have to limit the amount he chases, particularly north and south in the strike zone, to prevent better pitchers from getting him into leveraged counts too easily.
It’s also worth digging into Lee’s splits batting left versus right handed, with the caveat that his sample as a right-handed hitter at Triple A is too small to draw meaningful conclusions.
|
EV |
Hit95+% |
Contact% |
Chase% |
xAVG |
xSLG |
|
|
as LHH |
91.3 mph |
52.9% |
78.2% |
33.8% |
.310 |
.531 |
|
as RHH |
87.4 mph |
26.1% |
68.7% |
38.2% |
.178 |
.203 |
Whew! Parsing Lee’s split down further to how he performed versus fastballs against left-handed and right-handed pitching is similarly illuminating. Lee received a steady diet of fastballs outside the strike zone as a right-handed hitter, which he went after, and often missed. He chased fastballs from right-handed pitchers at a 55% clip. This is where a high chase rate and good bat-to-ball skills coinciding can be dangerous. Lee chased and made poor quality contact against left-handers all too often in 2023. Improved selectivity as a right-handed hitter is an important developmental next step in 2024.
The 95th-percentile impact for Lee in 2024 is a regular MLB starter who competes for AL Rookie of the Year. That outcome would reverberate beyond the Twins 2024 season, as he’d net the Twins a PPI draft pick right after the first round in 2025. While that outcome may seem unlikely, you could say the same about a thousand other player development stories. I think it’s fair to say that his progress through the minors has been slightly overlooked due to his perception as a ‘high-floor’ prospect, while his potential impact is overlooked due to a perceived lack of ceiling. Don’t overlook the value Brooks Lee can bring to the 2024 Twins; it’s significant.
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