Debating Minnesota’s Top Prospect: Brooks Lee vs. Royce Lewis

Lewis will be a All-star SS for us.  I am a million percent in on Lewis as the face of the team in two years.  All of his injuries have been fluky and it sucks.  He is so good.

I cannot make a judgment.  I have not seen them both play, I am not qualified, I am just excited to see them progress and please do not let Royce go out on an icy day or play CF again.  If Lee can stay healthy he will already be ahead of Lewis.  Now I hope they let Lee progress as quick as possible - we are seeing a lot of young rookies the past three years, and get Lewis ready as quickly as possible. 

I'd still go with Lewis because his potential has already been realized on the MLB level with his elite bat & glove plus his leadership & understanding of the game. Love them both.

Who really cares who is labeled as #1.  Could we just have a top prospect come up, stay healthy, and have a great career!?!?!?

I hope both are playing with the Twins in the near future and we can debate who is the better player because both are doing great.  As for prospect, I think it is very close.  I would give the nod to who defends better, and Lewis looked like he could stick at SS in the short sample I saw.  Lee may be able to as well, there have been some bigger SS in history that did just fine. 

Lee needs to be the starting shortstop at Wiochita. Lewis gets a little time in St. Paul. Austin Martin also moves to St. Paul  and plays, where? Probably in the outfield, but at shortstop when Lewis is advanced.

Yes, who will b the Twins starting shortstop for the first month of 2023.

If, and when, Lewis comes up, do we let him stay and work anything and everything out if he doesn't dominate in the majors? 

The Twins can sign a good fill-in ultility guy for shortstop (like Adrianza of old). You would hope Julien would be ready sometime during the season to push that signing out of the backup-reserve position, giving the Twins a decent bench duo of Gordon and Julien.

The Twins will shortly sink or swim on home grown prospects.

They are really prospects 1A and 1B.  I don't think it matters where you put either one.  So much potential for both. 

If Lewis turns out to be a solid but not spectacular major-leaguer, I will be perfectly content with it. 

If Lee turns out to be a solid but not spectacular major-leaguer, I will be a little disappointed. 

Both are great prospects, but if we have to split hairs I’d go Lee as 1A and Lewis as 1B. My hope is that neither one is our starting SS for the next 5 years - that’s Correa.  But each could still start - one at 2B and the other at 3B, 

Regardless of ranking, the Twins have five non pitching prospects who should constitute the new young core on the ‘24 team: Lee, Lewis, Martin, Julien, and Wallner. All need to find playing time in the bigs next season - Lee has the pedigree to be rushed a bit. Assuming Buxton, Correa, Arraez, Jeffers and Gordon (he’s proven his spot) are still around, that’s 10 position players. An additional C and hopefully Kiriloff and Larnach round out our top 13. Celestino is still young too. If Correa is signed, Lee and Lewis mean Urshela and Polanco could be gone before the deadline (unless we are contending). 

4 minutes ago, Nashvilletwin said:

Both are great prospects, but if we have to split hairs I’d go Lee as 1A and Lewis as 1B. My hope is that neither one is our starting SS for the next 5 years - that’s Correa.  But each could still start - one at 2B and the other at 3B, 

Regardless of ranking, the Twins have five non pitching prospects who should constitute the new young core on the ‘24 team: Lee, Lewis, Martin, Julien, and Wallner. All need to find playing time in the bigs next season - Lee has the pedigree to be rushed a bit. Assuming Buxton, Correa, Arraez, Jeffers and Gordon (he’s proven his spot) are still around, that’s 10 position players. An additional C and hopefully Kiriloff and Larnach round out our top 13. Celestino is still young too. If Correa is signed, Lee and Lewis mean Urshela and Polanco could be gone before the deadline (unless we are contending). 

Sorry, forgot Miranda. It’s hard to keep track of all our young talent!  We  ideally have some good competition brewing over the next couple of years. 

17 hours ago, James said:

They are really prospects 1A and 1B.  I don't think it matters where you put either one.  So much potential for both. 

This.

I'm going to be kind of wishy washy on this "debate" and just say that I'm pretty happy we have both and even though they are both projected to be a SS, one of them probably won't end up there.  I'm going to predict Lewis ends up at SS and Lee becomes a 3B who will be the next Chipper Jones.  I'll take that.  

The Twins position players look to have such a bright future. 
 

I think this core coming up complemented by a few pieces already here has a chance to be very special. 
 

I imagine Lee will end up at 3rd, Lewis at SS, Julien at 2nd, Kiriloff at 1st, and I am a big believer of Jeffers at catcher.  
 

With an outfield of Austin Martin, Buxton and Larnach. 
 

With Arraez and Gordon in utility. 
 

It has potential to be a special core as we saw in the early 2000’s. 
 

The only thing missing is the ceiling of the pitching. Hopefully Ryan, Ober, Varland, Woods-Richardson, Winder, and a few others in the bullpen emerge like Duran.  
 

I think it can all come together for many years starting in 2024.  I think we can compete next year as well, but I truly hope we don’t overpay Correa. I also hope we get a new Manager. I think Rocco is bad at game management. 

Both are potential impact players, which is the key to excellent teams. Hopefully the FO won’t be tempted to trade either one for pitching this offseason. Their record of recent trades is not very good. 

It's really no debate , they are both talented players and glad to have them  ...

Let's hope they have long healthy careers and battle their butts off for a twins world series victory  ...

Like others in this post I'll say that I like both equally.  I have a little more confidence in Lewis since we've seen him in the majors and he excelled albeit in a small sample size.

I'd ask the Twins to hold on to both of them and let us enjoy watching them improve over the years.

Sometimes fate just hands you an unexpected treasure. There is no way Justin Jefferson should have fallen to the Vikings at #22 in the 2020 draft.  Just like Lee shouldn’t have fallen to the Twins in last year’s draft.

Maybe Lee is the Twins’ JJ……..just have a feeling about it,  

Top Prospect is a Top Prospect. I'm always more curious about who might make the majors, and when, and at what position.

Austin Martin is/was in that mix, too.....and could till be after AFL.

On 11/14/2022 at 11:04 AM, baul0010 said:

Who really cares who is labeled as #1.  Could we just have a top prospect come up, stay healthy, and have a great career!?!?!?

And could we just have that happen once or twice every year?