Minneapolis – Brooks Lee experienced highs and lows at the plate throughout the 2025 season. He set a career high 19-game hit streak during the Minnesota Twins’ June swoon and had a .281 batting average and .316 on-base percentage through his first 65 games.
But thereafter, Lee seemed to prioritize power in his swing at the expense of contact. From June 28 to the end of the year, he hit eight of his 16 home runs and 32 of his 64 RBI. However, his slash line dropped considerably, falling to .194/.256/.325 for his final 277 plate appearances.
That slash line kept Lee from taking a step forward in his sophomore year, especially with a 6.9% walk rate and a 16.2% strikeout rate. Lee’s productivity dripped at the end of the season. Still, when the Twins needed a big hit from him, he’d often deliver, like during the last home game of the season.
Minnesota was down 2-1 to the Cleveland Guardians in the bottom of the sixth. Luke Keaschall hit a one-out ground-rule double to bring the tying run into scoring position. Two batters later, Lee got an 0-1 fastball right down the middle and drilled it over the left field fence to give the Twins a lead they would never relinquish.
“Yeah, it’s good for us to end on a better note,” Lee said. “It’s a cool little cherry on top for the homestand.”
It was a good note for Lee and the team to finish the season at Target Field. Among the positives for Lee was how many games he played this year, 139 (second only to Trevor Larnach, 142), after starting the year on the IL with a lumbar strain in his back.
Lee’s back issues didn’t linger as the season progressed. Still, the challenges arose from understanding how his body responded to a full season after missing the team’s first 15 games.
“There’s been a lot of ups and downs this year,” Lee said. “I think I’ve got to do a better job of handling that. That would probably keep me in the highs a little longer. But it is what it is. It’s my first full year in the big leagues. So I didn’t know what to expect. But yeah, I can obviously do it. I’ve had signs, some really good stretches, so it’s all about staying hot.”
“I see a young player that has good traits and shows a lot of good signs and has made some good adjustments, but a guy who’s also learning what it takes to face many different types of pitchers,” former Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said during the last homestand. “How to adapt, how to adapt quickly, and how to maintain a consistent good approach throughout a season. I think he’s doing what he’s supposed to do in the sense that he’s working hard to solve these things.”
How the hard work pays off in the off-season, in the spring, and even during the first few months of the season will be the lingering questions surrounding Lee next year. His slumps in the second half led to a -1.0 bWAR and .655 OPS for the season, which didn’t meet his standards.
Part of the slump may have come from trying to crush the ball at any chance he could. However, in doing so, he brought his season’s totals down from where they were at the end of June. Sometimes, it was the result of waiting on a fastball and getting something off-speed. Instead, other times it would work in his favor, and he could tap into his power.
“That’s something that I think Brooks has actually done and implemented, and for stretches this year, has done well,” Baldelli said. “I think there are other times where he is really battling to try to do that, but ends up maybe a little too far out in front. So it’s all adjustment-making. And it’s timing of your swing, and it’s one of those things that you can change in the snap of a finger. But it has to be a conscious decision.”
In the offseason, Lee will focus on his splits between the right and left sides of the plate. He slightly improved as a switch-hitter on both sides this year compared to his rookie season.
Lee went from hitting .211/.263/.317 with just two home runs over 133 plate appearances on the right side in 2024 to .220/.278/.365 with 11 home runs in 349 plate appearances this season. And as a lefty, he went from hitting .245/.269/.327 with one home run in 52 plate appearances in 2024 to .266/.298/.379 with five home runs over 178 plate appearances.
Despite the slight uptick in improvement, it’s still far from where Lee would like to be as a switch-hitter on both sides of the plate. He’ll be driven to improve upon the faults in his swing this offseason.
“I definitely was disappointed in my left-hand side,” said Lee. “It’s been on the up and up, so that’s good. Right-handed is a big surprise. I’m happy where I am on that side. Right now, I feel comfortable on both sides. That’s how I ultimately want to feel all the time, but as a switch-hitter, it’s impossible.”
While the results fell short of what Lee and the Twins had hoped for from him completely in 2025, there was a great deal that all parties learned about his performance in a full major league season. Now that the floor in a full season’s work has been established for Lee at the plate, it will now be a wait-and-see approach to see whether he’ll continue to build power from both sides of the plate or reintroduce the contact skills he showed throughout June.
“I haven’t seen him lose confidence,” said Baldelli. “I’ve seen him just work. Just continue to fight and battle up there and do what he can. Even if it might not be a day he’s feeling great, he’s going out there and trying to put himself in the best spot. I think he’s going to learn a lot coming out of this consistent work, this consistent work at shortstop, and put it to good use this offseason.”
