Brooks Lee looked like the star scouts envisioned when the Twins promoted him from the minors in July. He had 11 hits in his first 24 major league at-bats, including a home run and a double.
Taken eighth overall from Cal Poly in the 2022 MLB Draft, Lee at 23 years old was making good on the promise he showed in college and the minors, where he hit .290/.362/.480 with 28 home runs in 860 plate appearances.
The rest of the season went as disastrously for Lee as it did for the Twins collectively. Suddenly unable to catch up to fastballs, Lee sputtered to a .182/.233/.270 slash in his final 159 plate appearances. The Twins went 18-26 in those games and missed the postseason.
Faced with extended failure for the first time in his baseball life, Lee took a deep dive during the offseason to change his swing, working a lot with his hands to make it shorter and simpler. Lee told Dan Hayes of The Athletic that not hammering heaters for the first time was tough to take.
"Last year was the first time I never hit a fastball. It makes it pretty difficult to hit [at all]," Lee said. "I happened to fail after being on top of the world for two weeks. It sucked."
While his overall results at Spring Training don't stand out, looking deeper shows something more. Lee's offseason adjustment seems to be working, where he is batting .417 with a .250 isolated slugging against the 50 fastballs (four-seamers and sinkers) that have been measured by Statcast. His 90.8 mph exit velocity average is what you want, as is his 21.7% whiff rate, which covers all swings and misses.
He's been showing well at second, a position that has a lot of competition.
As scout Keith Law told the Locked on Twins Podcast, every scout missed on Lee if he doesn't hit in the major leagues. There's a good chance Lee will hit a lot if he has adjusted to fastballs for real.
On defense, Lee showed in 2024 that shortstop might not be his best position in the long term but he also made this play the other day on a hard grounder in the hole :
Lee already looked capable at second base and third in 2024. At second, he's probably the best on the team among Edouard Julien and Mickey Gasper, and maybe Willi Castro too. Lee probably will be better than José Miranda at third, and possibly Castro as well.
Being able to play both positions will be required for Lee to improve in 2025, and for the Twins to do better than 82 victories. He'll do it, and they will.
And if he could fill in capably for Carlos Correa at short, whoa.