Brooks Lee - .272/.355/.445 OPS .800 wRC+ 110. Just a year out of college and playing in AA, Lee has been holding his own with numbers that have been pushed up with a huge game yesterday. Lee went 3/6 with 2 doubles and a home run, spiking his numbers quite a bit. Lee’s been showing average pop with the bat, as expected, but there’s still room to grow on plate discipline. By no means a free swinger with a 16.7% K rate, Lee’s walk rate is sitting a little lower than expected at 11.2%. At just 22, Lee’s still performing excellently overall, though he’s not particularly young for the position in the league. The big question with last year’s 1st round pick for the Twins was whether he could actually stick at SS. In my opinion, scouts are a little iffy when it comes to predicting defensive positions as the "eye test" is fraught with emotional attachments and perceptions. So far, Lee has acquitted himself admirably at shortstop. As is the typical mold with Twins’ shortstops, the error rate is below ideal. For whatever reason, the Twins coaches and development teams are purely inept at producing confident gloves in the infield, but Lee is still better than most recent SS prospects in the Twins’ system with a .963 FP. Here’s how Lee stacks up (numbers are a couple days old here)

As you can see, Brooks Lee has the highest range factor per 9 innings of any shortstop in the league, and that’s incredibly encouraging. RF/9 is the best indicator for MiLB fielding I that I have access to, anyway. I added Austin Martin’s 2022 to the list for reference. You can see what a stretch Martin is for the position despite the Twins commitment to Martin’s opportunities, no doubt in part due to Martin's struggles at the plate. RF/9 isn’t perfect as team pitching can have a pretty big impact. It turns out, the Wind Surge have arguably the worst pitching staff in the league, with more hits and home runs allowed than any other team. Putting more balls in play means more opportunities to make a play for the fielders so I’ve crudely adjusted for balls in play. Lee regresses quite a bit in terms of RF/9 vs. the league’s best when adjusted, but our #1 Twins prospect is certainly still respectable.

In regard to how Lee compares to his peers at the plate, once again, Lee is holding his own, especially with the 40 point OPS boost the last few days at the plate provided him. Even though Lee isn't dominating his league, I think I'd rank Lee the #2 SS of the league's SS group.

#1 is Jordan Lawlar, IMHO. The 20 year old is the Diamondbacks #1 MLB.com prospect coming into the season, and he's matching Lee's production on both sides, but with a .285 BABIP and without a huge boost from the last week of play. That said, Lawlar's production relies on power and there's a fair amount of swing and miss in his game giving him a lower floor than Lee. It's worth noting Fangraphs had Lawlar at #21 and MLB #6 (Lee was #16 and #19, respectively).

#3 is 21 year old Rangers prospect Acuna, the #3 prospect for his team. Another high BABIP benefactor, but with probably better defense than Lee, there's no reason to suspect Acuna won't stick at SS and his work at the plate has been consistently very good for his age. I'd say Acuna's floor is at least as high as anybody else in the group, but I think his ceiling is likely a bit limited. He's 5'8" and listed at 181lbs so the power tool isn't likely to really develop more than it already has.

#4 is Hernaiz was ranked #14 by MLB for the Athletics by MLB.com and is the only prospect in this group outside the top 100, but his performance is undoubtedly going to raise his status. A tick younger than Lee at 21, and he's leading the shortstop prospects with a .879 OPS. That OPS comes with a weak BB rate and a very high BABIP of .394 and Hernaiz iis also defensively challenged at SS. I don't expect he'll stick there. Hernaiz has taken a leap forward at the plate vs. last year which makes his floor look a lot higher than it did.

With Carlos Correa likely cemented at SS for the foreseeable future, Brooks Lee has a limited opportunity to become a starting shortstop for the Twins; however, I could see Lee moving over to 2B to replace Jorge Polanco next year. I suspect the Twins will either decline Polanco’s option as it will not vest or more likely, sign and trade as they did with Urshela last offseason.

Now that the Twins parted ways with Luis Arraez, there remain two additional potential road blocks for Lee in Jose Miranda and the oft injured Royce Lewis, but I do expect Lewis to probably move into center field next year unless Miranda struggles at the plate for the remainder of the season at the MLB level. To be honest, the front office and Baldelli do seem to have the perspective anybody can play any position on the diamond like a rec league pick-up game, and that makes it hard to predict fielding positions so who knows? In any case, I expect Brooks Lee to push his way onto the Twins roster by mid next season at the latest.