Twins' Royce Lewis striving for healthy, productive season in 2025

A healthy, productive season from Royce Lewis could be a massive game-changer for the Twins' outlook in 2025. He's part of their trio of star position players, along with Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, who have a chance to rack up huge numbers and lots of wins if they can just stay on the field for 120+ games. The difference is that those two, particularly Correa, have done it before.

Lewis, who was the first overall pick as a high school prospect in 2017, had his career trajectory set back by the cancellation of the 2020 minor league season and torn ACLs in each of the two following years. He came back in late May of 2023 and raked for the Twins, hitting .309 with 15 home runs and a .921 OPS in 58 games, though he missed another chunk of time in the summer with an oblique injury. Lewis added four home runs in six postseason games that year, establishing himself as an electrifying rising star in MLB.

Last year, Lewis picked up right where he left off by homering on Opening Day — and then suffered a quad injury in that game that cost him two months. He returned in early June and hit nine home runs in the next 15 games, only to miss a few more weeks in July and then cool down massively from mid-August through the end of the season as the Twins fell apart as a team. Lewis finished with 16 home runs, a .233 average, and a .747 OPS in 82 games.

Royce Lewis just continues to mash.

His 4th home run in his last 6 games. 💪 pic.twitter.com/8zDW1EPzHu
— MLB (@MLB) June 20, 2024

Now the 25-year-old is looking to bounce back and put it all together for a full season. He reported early to Twins spring training in Fort Myers, FL because he's itching to get going, he said on the team's Inside Twins show on Wednesday. He's had a healthy offseason and is striving for big things in 2025.

"I think every year, you can always grow and get better," Lewis said. "For me, I've always grown and gotten better, whether that was through injury or being healthy, like this offseason. So it was great. I'm looking forward to building off of what I had, (82) games last year. Try to build off that and slowly get to that full season for the first time. I know not only myself, but a lot of fans and my family, especially, are very excited for that to happen."

Projecting Twins' Opening Day roster and lineup ahead of spring training

If the Twins could somehow get even 120+ games out of each of Lewis, Correa, and Buxton, the ceiling of their offense would be very high. Correa and Buxton are former All-Stars with established track records of two-way success when they're on the field; the pair combined to produce 7.3 WAR in 188 games last year. And despite a prolonged slump late last season, Lewis has a career 126 OPS+ to go along with 37 homers and 109 RBI in 158 games, playoffs included.

Lewis has heard the talk about the Twins' inactivity this offseason, but he knows their success this season will be all about the stars being on the field. Early reports have been that both Correa and Buxton have had "close to perfect" offseasons.

"People talk about 'Oh, they haven't made moves, this and that,'" Lewis said. "Well, you don't need to make moves as long as your guys are healthy and doing what they need to do. I think we all pride ourselves on doing that, but you can only control so much. Freak things are going to happen, Gerrit Cole might run one up on you, 98 to 100's not gonna feel good on your hands or whatever it may be. I'll be wearing all the guards, I'm gonna be taking more precautions for myself. But I know that those guys are most definitely ready and they're looking good, so I'm excited to get out there with them and the rest of the team."

Health aside, Lewis will be looking to bounce back from the first real struggles of his short MLB career. After famously saying last June that he "doesn't do that slump thing," he slumped in a major way, hitting just .191 with a .493 OPS and one home run in his final 42 games of the season.

Lewis admitted that he ran out of gas a bit in that stretch. This year will be about building up his body to play a full season, while also making some adjustments at the plate. He said he's been working with the Twins' new hitting coaches, hinting that he wants to keep his swing simple and has been using less of a leg kick.

"I'm really excited about some of the solutions they have for me this year in what they saw towards the end of the year and what we can clean up," Lewis said.

As for where he'll be playing defense this season, there had been some buzz about the possibility of Lewis getting more time at second base. He's tried to get comfortable at that spot this offseason. But Lewis said manager Rocco Baldelli told him to plan on playing third base this year unless something changes, so that will remain his primary focus.

"Obviously, we had some rumors that I might be playing (second), but after Rocco and Jayce (Tingler) came out and saw Trevor Larnach and myself, we sat down for a bit and talked about it, and he said 'Nah, we're gonna plan on you playing third unless you hear anything different,'" Lewis said. "So I'm planning on third base."

The Twins' first full squad workout of spring camp is next Monday.

Stay up to date on all things Twins by bookmarking Minnesota Twins On SI and subscribing to our YouTube channel.