The Brooks Lee Third Base Era is Beginning

On Friday, May 22nd, in Boston, Brooks Lee played a position other than shortstop for the first time since July 28th, 2025. Carlos Correa, the Twins’ starting shortstop between 2022 and mid-2025, left the following day’s game with a migraine and never played a game for Minnesota again. Since July 29th, Lee has started at shortstop in 95 games. But those days may be close to being over.

There are a number of factors at play here. First, Lee himself. When Lee was drafted eighth overall in 2022, scouts believed he could be a serviceable MLB shortstop, with a pro arm and sure hands, but a lack of range. Since then, his defensive outlook has diminished, and it has felt like Lee has been asked to play shortstop out of necessity. He has turned in some good plays, but he seems overmatched, with -8 outs above average (OAA) in 1,193 innings at the position, and -5 OAA just this season alone (390 innings).

He’s graded out at second and third base as an approximately average-to-slightly-below-average fielder, and one of those two positions is likely where he needs to settle if he wants a multi-year career as a starting player. However, to this point, Minnesota has relied on him at shortstop due to a dearth of other options.

Tristan Gray, the team’s utility infielder through the first two months of the 2026 season, is a 30-year-old out of his athletic prime who can play some shortstop but shouldn’t be counted on as the team’s everyday shortstop, nor has he been playing every day at any position. However, the team recently called up another utility infielder, Ryan Kreidler, who has a much different profile than Gray.

Kreidler, despite his hot start at the plate (.313/.405/.656 with 3 home runs in 37 plate appearances), is not a good hitter. He’s been among the worst hitters in baseball during his five-year MLB career. However, he’s a bona fide shortstop. Prior to Friday’s game, he had played five games in center field and five games at third base, only starting at shortstop in a game Lee did not play.

Friday, though, he played shortstop, the position where he’s most valuable, for the first time getting precedence over Lee. And Saturday, he started at the hot corner again. In fact, on the broadcast, Cory Provus noted that the club has made it clear that Lee will spend a lot of time at third in the near future.

This alignment makes the most of both players’ skill sets when both are on the dirt. Kreidler is the best shortstop on the team, so it makes sense to play him at the toughest position. Lee has a profile best served at third base, given his lack of range. Honestly, the Twins’ third utility infielder, Orlando Arcia, should also get precedence over Lee at short.

Neither Kreidler nor Arcia nor Gray is likely to be the long-term answer at shortstop, though. Instead, this move also appears to be clearing a path for Twins Daily’s #2 prospect, shortstop Kaelen Culpepper, to make his debut in the not-so-distant future. Culpepper, the 21st overall pick in 2024, has been heating up at Triple-A St. Paul over the last few weeks, with an OPS over .900 over the past month.

Culpepper started the season slowly, getting his first taste of Triple-A pitching this season. He’s also bounced around the diamond this spring, but two-thirds of his appearances have been at shortstop. Culpepper is more athletic and rangy than Lee with a plus arm, though there are questions about whether he has enough range to cut it as an MLB shortstop long-term. If he’s merely average, though, he’s a better option than Lee. Jamie Cameron wrote a great profile on Culpepper earlier this month that I encourage you to read.

Long-term, the Twins probably hope a player like Twins Daily's #7 prospect Marek Houston will take over shortstop duties and move Culpepper to second or third base, but by all indications, the Twins seem to prefer Culpepper over Lee at short, necessitating a move to third (or second) base at some point for the three-year veteran.

And the Twins recently reduced their 40-man roster to 39, designating Luis Garcia for assignment Saturday morning, which opens the door to add Culpepper to both the active and 40-man roster without much resistance.

There’s another name at play, though—the reason third base is open for Lee to play, at least sporadically for now. Royce Lewis, the Twins’ starting third baseman (when healthy) since 2023, was demoted to Triple-A earlier this week after mustering just a .539 OPS in his first 119 plate appearances of 2026.

For the foreseeable future, he will be in St. Paul (which also cuts into Culpepper’s time playing positions beyond shortstop), leaving major league playing time available at third base. It’d be a bit surprising if Lee exclusively played third for the time being, though the Twins don't currently have a player who plays third but doesn't play shortstop on their roster.

It’s unclear whether—or if—Lewis will return to major-league action, or at what position. As bad as Lee has looked early this season at shortstop, Lewis looked as bad or worse at third base. It’s possible that Lewis, along with getting his hitting back on track, may need to learn to play another position to get back up to the majors, but that conversation is months away.

As a caveat, the Twins have another struggling infielder—Luke Keaschall—to worry about. Perhaps Lee or Culpepper (or Arcia or Gray) might also be asked to man the keystone at some point, which complicates this analysis. But for right now, it looks like we’re in the early stages of Brooks Lee’s short tenure as Minnesota’s shortstop coming to an unceremonious end, and the newly-vacated hot corner is as good a place as any to let him settle in, so long as he shows something at the plate*.

*it’s unclear that he’s shown enough at the plate yet