An (Over) Analysis of Royce Lewis' Hitting Numbers

[Matt Braun]

It was 1920, alcohol would soon be banned, big band Jazz would become the popular music of the time, and Republican Warren G. Harding would take the office of the Presidency in March the following year. His opponent, James Cox, has melted away in the sands of time; the tragic victim of losing in a country that has no time for losers. Cox's running mate, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, could have easily been the nominee for the Democrats, but the politically wise Roosevelt sensed the shifting tides and understood that he would never win in 1920. Woodrow Wilson burned any goodwill left with the American public, and the last time a Democrat took office after another Democrat was James Buchanan in 1857. FDR still wanted to be president, but his time would have to wait. 

Royce Lewis is no longer on the Twins big-league roster. The top prospect slashed .308/.325/.564 with the ballclub, a total impressive for most hitters in the game, much less one who just recently played his first professional baseball game in two-and-a-half years. But the Twins, whether so enamored by Gio Urshela that they couldn’t possibly DFA him, or doggedly set on having Lewis play shortstop no matter the cost, optioned him to AAA. While Lewis is now literally just 15 minutes away, let's dive far too deep into his offensive numbers in the majors. 

Plate Discipline:
Looking first at his O-Swing%, Lewis swung at 33.3% of pitches outside the strike zone, placing him 34th highest amongst qualified hitters in MLB, sandwiched between two Austins; Hays and Riley. There’s nothing inherently damning about that stat—O-Swing rate is more descriptive of how the meat is made rather than its quality; that he’s between a great hitter in Riley and a forgettable one in Hays makes that point by itself. Dave Cherman’s work allows us to understand that O-Swing rate is correlated with walks, meaning that Lewis did not show much of an affinity for taking a free base, which we knew.

The following important stat is O-Contact %—how much contact did Lewis make with pitches outside the strike zone? He put up a 70.0% mark, an elite total that would tie him with teammate Gio Urshela and Ozzie Albies for 24th in baseball. If you can believe it, making contact with pitches outside the zone is a great way to lower your strikeout rate (as pointed out by general baseball logic and Cherman’s work from above), and Lewis rocked this area. His otherworldly 12% strikeout rate is probably lower than it will be when his numbers stabilize, but he should still settle in with a punchout rate well below average (in a good way).

Finally, we’ll observe Z-Contact %. Zone contact rate, again using Cherman’s work to help, is correlated with strikeouts—a swing and a miss inside the zone means as much for the count as a swing and a miss outside of it. Lewis’s 88.2 % mark is well above average, sitting 54th among 172 hitters, right above José Abreu. Again, this number is hardly world-altering, but it reflects a hitter capable of putting the ball in play at the major league level. 

What is incredibly odd is that Lewis saw 56.8 % of pitches inside the strike zone, a total that would top the leaderboards if he qualified for them. MLB pitchers, rather than berate him with junk, thought the best course of action would be to hurl him enough strikes to make Jimmy Hoffa proud.

That level of zone-filling will certainly change whenever Lewis re-joins the team. 

Batted Ball Nuggets
Lewis popped an xWOBA of .347, good enough to tie him with known elite bats Gavin Lux and Andrew Knizer; Austin Hays isn’t far behind. Perhaps most impressive was his smoked “officer, I didn’t mean to kill him” 114 MPH line-out that could have cartoonishly blasted José Ramírez through brick walls if we didn’t live in such a dull reality. Instead, it was just an out. So it goes.

Not Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, or another big-meaty man, Pete Alonso, have hit a ball harder this year. 

The baseball gods gave Royce Lewis 139 pitches to sculpt an impressive resume from, and he did a solid B+ job, hinting at a tool collection full of noisy, consistent contact. Happenstance chose otherwise this time, but Lewis is guaranteed another shot at staying in the majors whenever the universe next carelessly chooses to injure an unfortunate starter. Hopefully, for that player’s sake, their nickname isn’t Wally Pipp.

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[Whitey333]

OMG  well researched article but way over done.  All of the metrics out there is ridiculous.  Trying to make good players look great.  Trying to make poor players look good or at least acceptable by over analyzing the analytics.  This is what has been ruining baseball.  What happened to the old eye test?  It worked for decades.  People evaluating people, managers managing, not computerized analytics.  Baseball is becoming just a large video game, more boring than ever.

[mikelink45]

Wonderful history lesson and a fun analysis thanks for the work. I believe there was a free Lewis movement that needs to come to the forefront. What an enjoyable time it was to have him here.

[peterb18]

22 minutes ago, Whitey333 said:

OMG  well researched article but way over done.  All of the metrics out there is ridiculous.  Trying to make good players look great.  Trying to make poor players look good or at least acceptable by over analyzing the analytics.  This is what has been ruining baseball.  What happened to the old eye test?  It worked for decades.  People evaluating people, managers managing, not computerized analytics.  Baseball is becoming just a large video game, more boring than ever.

 

19 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

Wonderful history lesson and a fun analysis thanks for the work. I believe there was a free Lewis movement that needs to come to the forefront. What an enjoyable time it was to have him here.

Agree 100%.

[Linus]

I believe ha played 11 games. I’m excited about the future of Royce Lewis but let’s calm down a little. 

[roger]

Loved the intro, Matt.  Thanks for the smile.

Always a bit hesitant to get into articles with all the new data.  Just don’t understand a lot of it.  Have a question about the graph showing the pitches he has seen in the zone.  Shouldn’t all the percentages add up to 100%?  Shouldn’t those in the strike zone add up to the 56.8% you quote?  They don’t, not even close.  So I don’t know what that is telling us?

[Unwinder]

54 minutes ago, Whitey333 said:

OMG  well researched article but way over done.  All of the metrics out there is ridiculous.  Trying to make good players look great.  Trying to make poor players look good or at least acceptable by over analyzing the analytics.  This is what has been ruining baseball.  What happened to the old eye test?  It worked for decades.  People evaluating people, managers managing, not computerized analytics.  Baseball is becoming just a large video game, more boring than ever.

I very much enjoy all the analytics. While you obviously need to be careful not to overrate a player based on one esoteric data point, I think they're helpful to me in understanding how different players' skills at the plate differ, and what their strengths and weaknesses are as hitters. Sorry, but what's ruining baseball for you really brings it to life for me.

[Eris]

1 hour ago, Whitey333 said:

  What happened to the old eye test?  It worked for decades. 

I don’t understand all of the stats but I read what I understand. Isn’t the eye test the reason Derek Jeter won 5 gold gloves while accumulating -DRS in 4 of those seasons. How do you refute this without statistics. Or that Kent Hrbeck or Doug M deserved gold gloves.

https://www.si.com/.amp/mlb/2021/11/20/derek-jeter-carlos-correas-golden-glove-comments-it-doesnt-warrant-a-response

 

I was certainly surprised that Royce Lewis did as well as he did. For several years we have been reading scouting reports (from Keith Law and others) that indicated that Lewis had a hole in his swing and was likely not an MLB shortstop. My reading of this article is that Lewis received too many good pitches to hit, (perhaps because of the above mentioned hole in his swing) and I look forward to Lewis making the adjustments to either hitting or laying off breaking balls just off the zone. 

[Dave The Dastardly]

Matt-

I don't get into analytics but love your writing style. Kept a dull subject interesting enough for me to keep reading.

[Matt Braun]

2 hours ago, roger said:

Loved the intro, Matt.  Thanks for the smile.

Always a bit hesitant to get into articles with all the new data.  Just don’t understand a lot of it.  Have a question about the graph showing the pitches he has seen in the zone.  Shouldn’t all the percentages add up to 100%?  Shouldn’t those in the strike zone add up to the 56.8% you quote?  They don’t, not even close.  So I don’t know what that is telling us?

If I were to guess, the definition of a pitch in a certain location and it being "in the strike zone" could differ based on whether it was called a strike or not. Because the samples are so darn small, just a few calls could make it so that a pitch was thrown in a specific location of the plate, but not called a strike. Therefore, it could be reflected in the heatmap, but not necessarily his zone %. Also I grabbed most of my numbers from pitch info solutions and the heatmap could be from a different source, which mucks things up. That's the issue with trying to look at very small samples! 

[Montdak]

I don’t understand the wailing and gnashing of teeth about him being sent down.  I too originally thought Miranda but then it’s pointed out that Lewis can’t play other positions so much.  Surely he can play second but St Paul and playing every day  and some reps at third or outfield or whatever might be best for a while.  He’s still young, lost all that time, needs to play and has one of THE best shortstops playing his position .  He’ll be a Twin SOON.

[Doctor Gast]

Lewis has that spark that ignites this team, on & off the field. That goes beyond the analytics.

[RJA]

I love your stuff, Matt.  But, this may be an example of hitting a fly with a sledgehammer--a little too much analysis given the paucity of data.  I am a history buff as well, so I thoroughly enjoyed your non-traditional lead in to the analysis!    

[nova_twins]

Lewis' debut was absolutely a huge deal, especially in combination with how he's played in AAA. You can dig into the metrics or you can just stick with the basics, it doesn't really matter - he's showing elite offensive upside along with the potential to play shortstop, which is incredibly rare.

If anything, Lewis' development has been underhyped, because his 1st overall pick pedigree gets more attention than the fact his last minor league success had been 2018 in A-ball. In terms of expected future value, Lewis' rise this year has to be at or near the top across all MLB orgs.

[AKTwins]

I think a large part of the reason Lewis was thrown so many strikes was due to his place in the batting order.  Teams typically throw better pitches to the 7-9 hitters, hoping they get themselves out since they are typically weaker hitters. Plus you don’t want to walk a guy with the top of the order coming up, which will have the better hitters.  Lewis batted 9th alot.  They didn’t want to walk him and face Buxton with runners on or Polanco with a runner on.  This is not to take anything away from Lewis.  Lewis did what you are suppose to do and that is hit balls in the zone.  On the same note, I think part of Miranda’s issues have been that he is batting higher in the lineup.

[h2oface]

Even with your well qualified title, you get comments like you weren't advertising what you were writing about. Thanks for the fun, and interesting article, Matt Braun. One can only use the numbers that are generated so far, ever. I for one, unqualified, appreciate it. 

[gil4]

12 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

What happened to the old eye test?  It worked for decades.  People evaluating people, managers managing, not computerized analytics. 

It worked for decades until it didn't work anymore, because someone did something else that worked better. 

We may get to a point where everyone has the same numbers ands same computer analysis, and the only tiebreaker will be one scout's eye test vs. another's.  We aren't there yet (as far as I can tell),  Of course, even the eye test will be video that's enhanced and analyzed by computers...

[Rosterman]

Yes, a true over-analysis.

I would really like to see a corresponding look at how Royce has fared in AAA ball to have a better idea of how he is doing, and the differences between AAA ball and major league pitching.

[TopGunn#22]

Still...I just miss Royce.  Come back Royce, please come back...sigh...

Love the history for the intro.  Few people know how badly FDR prolonged the Great Depression with his policies either.  A basketball coach of mine in high school was also a history teacher and he bragged up FDR in a big way.  It wasn't until I was a young man, 4-5 years removed from college that I decided to read a few other books on the subject and I was shocked that my history teacher/coach from high school never pointed out any of that.