Lewis back to second? Slugger taking reps 'just in case'

Royce Lewis had offered an uncharacteristic amount of pushback late last summer when the Twins had toyed with the idea of giving him defensive opportunities at second base, but that had less to do with his opposition to the idea as a whole -- and more that he didn’t want to be pushed to a new position and have to learn it on the fly with a playoff push on the line.

But this offseason, with time to prepare, his tone has been decidedly different, according to manager Rocco Baldelli.

Baldelli and bench coach Jayce Tingler got lunch with Lewis and Trevor Larnach on Monday in the Dallas-Fort Worth area ahead of the start of the Winter Meetings, where Lewis shared with his manager that he’d been taking ground balls on both sides of second base -- which certainly leaves the door open to making the transition to second base, if needed.

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"It tells you a little bit about where his head is,” Baldelli said. “Yeah, he's getting some work done at second, just in case. But we'll make that decision when we see what our roster overall is going to look like. It's hard to say anything about where Royce will ultimately fall. I'd like to figure that out sooner than later. I'm sure he would, too."

As to whether Lewis will actually need to make that move? It still depends on where the course of the Twins’ offseason goes -- so only time will tell. But his openness to doing so certainly doesn’t hurt.

The Twins’ offseason picture remains wide open as the market untangles itself, with president of baseball and business operations Derek Falvey’s hope being that the trade market would start coming to pass more aggressively once the free agents started moving -- and that has started, with Juan Soto and Max Fried among the big-ticket players having signed with new clubs.

Amid all that, the Twins have loosely emphasized some appeal at targeting first base -- from where Carlos Santana is a free agent and Alex Kirilloff has retired -- and that search could actually impact the Twins’ plans for Lewis.

That’s because, with no first-base addition, their plan there would likely revolve around some combination of Edouard Julien and Jose Miranda -- which in turn forces the Twins to consider how they’ll use some combination of Lewis, Willi Castro and Brooks Lee to plug in at second and third base behind them.

Lewis struggled both offensively and defensively down the stretch as the Twins faltered, with continued throwing challenges across the diamond as he finished the season on a .181/.245/.255 slump in September.

"I think he ran out of gas,” Falvey said of Lewis. “We tried to figure out how to manage that. I think some of that is mental and some of that is physical, right? … I think he went through it, and we got to the end. ... Hopefully, that experience will make him better going into next year."

Perhaps a move to second base could help on the defensive side -- and perhaps learning from the challenges of ‘24, his first real struggles at the big league level, could help, too.

Either way, the Twins hope to put him in the best spot possible to rediscover his best form.

"Whatever we go with at the beginning to start Spring Training, I really hope to be able to just go with it and allow him to prepare for his season in that spot,” Baldelli said. “With Royce, I think finding a good spot for him and letting him settle in, prepare, get ready confidently and play, I think that's what we're looking for."