We’re halfway through the season, and the Minnesota Twins’ offense hasn’t gotten going yet. They have a +44 run differential, fifth-best in the American League. However, their high-end pitching is making up for their hitting woes. Case in point, the Twins are only 10th in the AL with 4.3 runs per game, largely due to their league-worst 807 strikeouts – 60 more than the 29th-ranked San Francisco Giants.
There was hope that some prospects could work their way to the majors and provide a spark. Someone could break through and help the Twins out of their league-worst 29.1 percent whiff rate. Specifically, Royce Lewis, Derek Falvey and Thad Levine’s first-ever pick.
Lewis made his return on May 29 after missing a year to a second consecutive ACL tear. Having someone come off that kind of injury to save an offense usually isn’t ideal. His productive rehab games in the minors and lack of consistent production on offense only increased the expectations for his return. Lewis was able to match them in the first week.
He hit home runs that beat the Houston Astros and Cleveland Guardians. Lewis’ power hasn’t consistently manifested in the big leagues, he only has four home runs in 24 games. However, that hasn’t slowed Lewis down. He has already been one of Minnesota’s most productive hitters this season. He’s slashing .333/.357/.506 with a team-leading 137 wRC+ and 142 wRC+ (100 is league average) while also having a 1 Win Probability Added in less than a month.
What has made Lewis so productive? He has settled into the role of the hitter who puts the ball in play instead of mashing mistakes. A .418 batting average on ball in play, which excludes walks and strikeouts, is the highest for any Twin this season with over 15 plate appearances. After hitting the go-ahead run in Sunday’s 6-3 extra-inning win over Detroit, Lewis shared his mindset at the plate with The Athletic.
It’s just me being able to put the bat on the ball and make contact and make people do things. You’ve just got to play the game and when you strike out, no one is doing anything except for the pitcher. Honestly, I get frustrated after a while and I just go back to being like – what I said to (hitting coach David Popkins) is, ‘I’m going to turn into (Luis) Arraez today, just touch the ball. There is a lot of grass out there.
Those comments likely aren’t meant to be a shot at the current offensive philosophy or even any particular players. However, it speaks to a lack of diversity in hitting on the Twins lineup. That’s something the team has been missing since, well, Arraez was in Minnesota. Nobody in baseball can do what Luis Arraez is doing. He’s hitting .400 while being a key part of a winning ball club is something that the Twins likely would not have traded away if they knew he’d be that productive.
However, the reason the Twins were comfortable trading away that change-of-pace hitter likely has to do with a guy like Lewis being ready to make an impact on the big-league team. Plus, one hitter can’t completely change a lineup. Minnesota’s current 4.3 runs/game is the same number as the year before with Arraez on the roster.
Lewis, aside from maybe prospect Edouard Julien, has been the closest thing the Twins have had to an Arraez-type player. What made Arraez so impactful for the Twins is that he provided a contact hitter for opposing pitchers to worry about amidst a lineup that values pure power. That was a role Alex Kirilloff or even Max Kepler could have filled as a high-average type of hitter, but that hasn’t come to fruition. Kirilloff did look like that player his first month back. Since June 1 however, he’s slashed .210/.273/.310 with a .286 BABIP.
With the current underlying numbers that Lewis has, he still has room to grow. Contact-hitting is valuable, but it might be more of a byproduct of where he is at this point in his career. As a young hitter, Lewis has a 51.2 percent swing rate, which is 4.5 percent above league average. He also has a 30 percent whiff rate, which is 5.2 percent above the league average. That creates a bit of a chicken or egg situation. Has he become a contact hitter because he’s free-swinging, or is he free swinging solely to create contact?
Also the free-swinging has also meant the strikeouts are nowhere near Arraez’s levels. Arraez owns a 7.8 percent career strikeout rate, while Lewis has a 26.2 percent strikeout rate in 2023. Lewis also owns an incredibly low 3.6 percent walk rate. Arraez was never a Joe Mauer-type base-on-balls master, but his 8.6 percent walk rate more than doubles Lewis’.
That’s not to say Lewis can’t improve in either category. He still has some ground to cover if he wants to be on Arraez’s level. That ability should come with time, and it appears to be trending in that direction. Since June 16, Lewis has increased his walk rate to 8.8 percent and reduced the punchouts to a 17.6 percent clip. He’s also producing an 88.7 MPH average exit velocity, which is above his season average of 86.8 MPH.
The biggest question for Lewis is going to be how long that approach continues. Lewis still has less than 50 games of big-league experience. Hitters still haven’t made the necessary adjustments, forcing him to make the counter-adjustment. It’s also clear why Lewis was a No. 1 overall pick with the amount of talent that is present in his game despite injuries and a lack of experience. We still don’t know what his ceiling is and time will tell if he can maximize on putting the ball in play.
Lewis should not be limited to being a solely contact hitting role long-term, but it can bring the Twins value in the immediate future. Having someone with Lewis’ talent show the importance of mixing contact hitting and calculated aggressiveness instead of relying on crushing mistake pitches could steer Minnesota in a little more moderate direction. They do not, and should not, need to become the Guardians, who over-rely on slap-hitting. Instead they need to find the happy medium.
For most of the first half of the 2023 season, Minnesota’s offense has been downright offensive. A drop in consistent exit velocity and an increase in swing and misses are the biggest culprits. Not every batter needs to become a slap-hitter, but the Twins need a couple of them to diversify their lineup. Lewis has deliberately made himself that kind of contact hitter Minnesota needed to diversify their lineup.
