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Returning from a second knee injury, Royce Lewis was a bit behind when spring training kicked off in 2023. He wasn’t going to be an option for Rocco Baldelli on Opening Day, and despite his being ready to rock, the club was always going to force him to take it slow.
This time around, Lewis will come into the season with no restrictions, and he is fresh off a rookie campaign that had him looking like one of the sport’s blossoming young stars. Lewis owned a great .309/.372/.548 slash line across 58 games during the regular season, and then he turned into a machine during the playoffs. It was almost like he was truly a superhero, and watching it unfold was a joyous sight to behold.
The last time Lewis played more than 100 games in a season was in 2019, when he split time between High A and Double A. Fluke injuries have cost him time over the past couple of campaigns, but his work ethic has him in position to be both healthy and strong. Now that he has experienced significant run at the highest level, he should be equipped to unleash his game.
Steamer projections at FanGraphs have Lewis playing in 138 games this season. Checking in with 3.8 fWAR, he would nearly be doubling his production (in limited action) last season. It’s probably fair to assume there will be a slight deflation in his offensive numbers, given how otherworldly he was as a rookie, but the .270/.337/.482 for which he's projected is beyond respectable. Twenty-eight home runs would be almost double the 15 he crushed last season, and 80 RBI would be a nice number for the Twins to add to their lineup.
From a high-level view, it seems like that sort of season would be a fair projection from Lewis. I’m not sure he will be a high-average guy, despite the .309 mark he tallied a season ago. A lot of that will hinge on his adjustments in the box, but he's already demonstrated the command of the strike zone needed to survive seeing the league a second or third time. Over his final 32 games after returning from injury, Lewis owned a 27-to-17 strikeout-to-walk ratio, which was lightyears better than the 28-to-3 he had when he hit the injured list in July.
We've seen Lewis transform his game over the years, and tweaks to his swing have now taken root. He is relatively quiet in the box, and his power production has bloomed as he has filled out. Putting up 30 homers over an entire season shouldn’t be unexpected, but he'll also hit his share of doubles. Lewis didn’t have many opportunities to flash his speed last year, but the wheels are also part of his game.
Playing less than one-third of the season at the big-league level last year, he gave Minnesota just a glimpse of what an unleashed Lewis could look like. Everything about him is what you would dream of from a first-overall draft pick, and making his first All-Star team in 2024 would mark a clear beginning for a new phase of his career.
Lewis has been the talk of Twins Territory for years now, similar to Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano before him, but he is still just 24 years old. Playing his age-25 season in 2024, this is a player with plenty of development and growth still in front of him. If you’ve been betting against Lewis to this point, you haven’t been watching. If his highlight-laden postseason wasn’t enough to convince you, get ready to receive a full 550 plate appearances of supporting evidence.
Carlos Correa and Lewis could find themselves creating the best left-side-of-the-infield in baseball this year, and watching the show should be a ton of fun. What questions or tantalizing possibilities draw your attention, as you ponder Lewis's coming season?
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