Twins Reportedly Considering Moving Royce Lewis To Second Base

Twins infielder Royce Lewis made his first career appearance at second base yesterday, fielding three innings of work at the position during the club’s win over the Blue Jays. According to a report from Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic, that could be the start of what becomes a more permanent move to the keystone as the club ponders Lewis’s defensive future.

Lewis is among the league’s most impressive young hitters, although he’s been hampered by injuries to this point in his career. The first overall pick of the 2017 draft has been nothing short of electric at the plate when healthy enough to play throughout his time in the majors, with a .286/.345/.552 (146 wRC+) slash line since his debut back in 2022. He’s done more of the same so far this season, as he’s slashed an excellent .259/.322/.557 (140 wRC+) in 227 trips to the plate between stints on the injured list due to quad and hip injuries. Among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances this year, Lewis’s .299 isolated slugging percentage ranks fifth in the majors behind only Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, and Kerry Carpenter.

Despite possessing one of the league’s most potent bats, however, Lewis’s glove stands out as a serious question mark. While Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric has generally looked upon his work at the hot corner somewhat favorably (+2 OAA at the position for his career), Fielding Bible’s Defensive Runs Saved has been less kind with a -2 DRS in just 35 games at the position this year. Advanced defensive metrics require much larger sample sizes to stabilize than the 700 innings Lewis has posted a third base so far in his career, but the eye test and traditional defensive stats aren’t particularly forgiving regarding the 25-year-old’s performance either.

Lewis has committed 11 errors in 84 games at the hot corner, ten of which have been throwing errors. That’s a worrying total at a position that prioritizes the fielder’s arm as much as third base does, and even regulars at the hot corner who are generally regarded as below average defenders like Rafael Devers and Austin Riley don’t commit throwing errors at a clip that elevated. By comparison, Devers has committed 11 total throwing errors at third base since the start of the 2023 season, while Riley has committed that same number since the start of the 2022 campaign. That volume of errors comes in sample sizes of more than 2,000 and 3,000 innings respectively, figures which both dwarf…