Lewis remains a promising talent, but he’s been burdened by multiple injuries

Royce Lewis, the first overall selection of the 2017 MLB Draft, has had his name surrounded by hype throughout his professional career.

Unfortunately, Lewis’ name also had another thing surrounding it: injuries.

In all three seasons with the Twins, Lewis has never finished a season playing 100 games. Coming into this year’s Spring Training, Lewis is healthy and looking to atone for a bad finish in 2024.

Lewis made his Twins debut on May 6, 2022, against the Oakland Athletics, where he collected his first career MLB hit.

Lewis made the most out of his brief time at the MLB level by hitting .300, including his first career home run, a grand slam against Cleveland on May 13.

Sadly, Lewis’ season came to a screeching halt when he suffered his second torn ACL while tracking down a fly ball on May 29 that year, which cost him the season.

The 2023 season saw Lewis miss 36 games with an oblique strain, but he played 58 games and accumulated 2.4 bWAR. In an eight-game span from Aug. 27 to Sept. 4, Lewis hit five home runs, three of which were grand slams.

After missing games due to a hamstring strain that September, Lewis returned to the Twins lineup in the playoffs and hit back-to-back home runs in Game 1 of the American League Wild Card series against the Toronto Blue Jays.

In 2024, Lewis played a career-high 82 games, but he was not the same player last season as in 2023. As the Twins endured a horrendous collapse in September, so did Lewis’ production.

Lewis hit a mere .181/.245/.255 that month and finished the season with a lackluster .295 OBP and a 0.7 bWAR.

Lewis later revealed that fatigue played a major role in 2024.

With a clean slate of health, Lewis is ready to put that awful stretch behind him and focus on the 2025 season. His teammates believe the rough stretch he endured in 2024 will make him a better baseball player this season.

Lewis got a good start this spring by hitting the Twins’ first home run.

The sound off Royce Lewis’s bat is just different 💥 pic.twitter.com/MHophJ6FI2

— MLB (@MLB) February 24, 2025

Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projects Lewis to have 384 plate appearances, which would be a career-high. ZiPS also projects Lewis to hit .247/.307/.441 with a 108 OPS+, close to his 2024 output.

Next season points to Lewis staying the course and having a solid overall season with the Minnesota Twins…

…if he can stay on the field.