He's been a playoff hero. He hits home runs (and grand slams) at a prodigious rate.
But health has been an issue for Royce Lewis, and he raised some eyebrows last season when he said, "I don't do slumps," prior to a deep late-season slump.
But the super talented young Minnesota Twins infielder is ready to put it all behind him and is clear in his intention to be healthy and ready for 2025. He speaks to WCCO's Jason DeRusha at spring training.
I always wonder, the way the season ended last year, that lingers with fans. As a professional athlete, are you able to kind of compartmentalize that and move forward maybe in a way that some fans aren't quite ready to do yet?
Sure. I think you have to. If you let sit with you, it'll just like - it'll suck. It'll make this next year brutal as well, and you'll start thinking about some things in the past. But you know, to that point, like you don't completely forget about it. You understand what happened and how that felt, so it motivates you to do better and to work harder each and every day to not let that happen again.
Offseason, what were you working on this this in these off months?
Man, I got I got married.
I know you got married in January!
Thank you. Thank you. We just had a lot of fun, try to keep my mind off of baseball and take advantage of those offseason moments and spend time with the family, with your friends, and that's what we did, man. We traveled, I went all over and had a had a beautiful time.
New hitting coaches this year. How do you expect your approach is going to change?
It depends on the pitcher every day for the approach, aspect of it. But in terms of just the swing, I think it's, you know, just continuing to work off the fastball. That's a big key always. If you can't hit the fastball, then how are you going to hit the other stuff? So just work off the fastball and be on time and be aggressive in the zone strike zone.
The infield has been sort of the question mark in the offseason who's going to play where. Where are you going to play? Where where do you want to play?
Yeah, I'll play wherever, man. I want to play for the Twins. That's my goal. I think we've been talking about, it's going to be on the dirt and you know, recently I was told 3rd base, so that's where my mindset is right now is, I'm going to play 3rd every day and be that guy. And be a cornerstone, literally and figuratively, for this team and help us win the championship.
In that 3rd base spot, when somebody smacks the ball over there, it comes really fast.
Oh yeah, it's a reactionary position for sure, so you're just working on a lot of angles, you know, making sure you cut the distance, make that a lot easier, and have a lot of fun doing it, man. It's baseball. At the end of the day just play catch, enjoy the moment. I'm playing next to a platinum gold glover over there at shortstop, so I'm going to enjoy watching the show over there too.
Rocco did mention that sort of the heart of this team is Carlos and Buck and that everybody looks to those two to sort of set the tone. How do you feel about that?
I feel great. I think that's how the team should be built off of, you know, these guys have big contracts. It makes the most sense. They're here for a long time.
When you think like, 'all right, what kind of leader do I want to be?' Do you look around baseball or look around this clubhouse and think, right, that's the kind of guy I want to lead the way I want to?
Sure. I think for me, I just got to be myself. You don't have to, you know, force leadership. You don't have to. You just accept it if it comes your way. I think it's something that like, we have 26 different leaders in this room. That's the way I look at it. And as we come together, you know, maybe one day it's Brock Stewart that comes up and says, 'hey guys, let's do this. Hey, hey, keep your heads up. Let's go. Or Joe Ryan or Pablo López. There's a lot of leaders in this room that I look up to personally. But for me, it makes it a lot easier when you talk to the position guys. So, Carlos and Buck, they're guys that are doing it each and every day, and I feel like when you look around the league, potentially, most leaders are the ones that are playing every day. Whether it's shortstop, centerfielders, whoever it is, it's the guys that are out there doing it each and every day. Which, no harm, no foul to the pitchers, but when you go out once a day? Once a week, it's a little bit harder. It's just a different thing. I think the pitchers should lead the pitchers. Pablo's a great leader for our team and on the staff. He's going to lead our staff, get us going, and I think Carlos and Buck combined you're going to help us lead the team and get us going.
We've got to ask about the hat. I mean, this is part of the fun of spring training, right? There's a lot of kids' signatures out there?
Yeah, I just honestly spur of the moment thing I was like, how about you sign my hat. So, started with one kid and then it went all the way out. So, Camden was the first one and then it just kept going from there and now I don't even know, man. I got a lot. We got Grayson, Noah, Isaac. All these guys, man, Gunner, they're all coming out here, Connor too.
Obviously you guys have a job to do and you expect elite performance, but this is also a game and creating memories is part of what your job is too, right?
I don't know if it's like I feel like I'm doing that. I think if anything they're creating memory for me because at the end of the day you know baseball is, you know, it's going to eat you up, spit you out, and it's going to keep going. I don't want to just be eaten and then just forgotten. I also want to, you know, keep these memories and take them with me, and I think this is one of them that for sure, you know, resonates with my heart.
The Twins open Grapefruit League play in Fort Myers this Saturday, February 22 against the Atlanta Braves at 12:00 p.m. You can hear the game live on 830 WCCO and on the Audacy App.