The Twins need Royce Lewis, but how?

It's hard to believe, but the Twins are actually 2.5 games better than the 2023 Twins were on May 30th, 2023. There are a couple of big difference, of course. The rest of the AL Central came to play this year, and Minnesota presently finds themselves in 3rd place. Also, the Twins have been on an extraordinary roller coaster ride throughout the season. 

The pitching has been steady, for what it's worth. Through every spin of the rotation, any pitcher, particularly Joe Ryan, is liable to give 6-7 quality innings, and the bullpen started extremely strong, and has cooled since then. The most volatile part of the Twins production, though is the offense.

It doesn't help that Royce Lewis was injured in the first game of the season, or that Carlo Correa missed a tract of time in the early part of the year either. Those two are viewed as the steadiest hands in the lineup. The Twins seemed to get a boost from Correa's return. One must surmise the same may happen with Lewis when he comes back.

So the Twins, despite a good stretch of baseball, are looking forward to having him come back and patch one of the holes in the lineup. Great! 

Well, maybe not so great. OK, so it is great, but it isn't going to be easy. For all the talk about an inconsistent lineup, the most consistent hitter has been Jose Miranda, Lewis' replacement. Fortunately, both Miranda and Lewis or positionally versatile and can be slotted nearly anywhere in the infield. 

I'm not even going to dig into the stats for Carlos Correa, because he is obviously not going anywhere. Utility hitter Willi Castro has been the third most valuable player for the Twins in the month of May, for some reason.

That leaves 4 hitters in the infield that might lose their spot when Lewis is ready to go. The young players that still have options, Alex Kirilloff and Edouard Julien buoyed the team for the first part of the team, but have since fallen on hard times. In the last couple of weeks, though, Kirilloff has started to come out of his funk. Julien plays a position that Lewis isn't known for. Do you let Kirilloff continue to swing his way out of his troubles, trusting him to be a major leaguer at this point, or do you want one of your top prospects to play out of position?

Those aren't the only two options, of course. There are a couple of veterans that might see their time with the Twins come to a close. Carlos Santana is the 10th oldest player in Major League Baseball (at a youthful 37) and was miserable to start. In the month of May, he was the 5th most valuable Twin, about where his productivity was expected to land. That leaves Kyle Farmer, an extremely popular player in the clubhouse. His popularity, the glue he provides to the team, were factors in the Twins spending what they did to retain him. He hasn't become unpopular, but his productivity has fallen off. Will the Twins want to sacrifice the investment they put into him?

There isn't an easy choice, but the nature of baseball is that there is always something unexpected around the corner. An injury would completely change the decision making process. For now, it's kust a tough decition.