Brooks Lee Becoming Increasingly Important to Twins’ Future

When you look at the numbers he put up offensively, you cannot avoid the feeling that this could be just the beginning of a breakout. If there is one thing Lee has always had, it is determination.

He approaches game situations aggressively and showed in 2026 that Minnesota can count on his bat to be part of a new generation with high expectations.

But if you ask me what the most interesting part of Lee’s progress is, I would not focus only on the offense and those 24 home runs with 83 RBIs that he put in his numbers, recording 2.8 fWAR, after starting 2026 at 0.0 during the first two campaigns of his career. I, instead, would give greater credit to his defensive leap as a third baseman.

Lee recorded 0 FRV and +6 OAA in 900 innings as a third baseman, taking his defense to another level compared with his entire recent history of struggles and shared playing time at other positions.

Even so, he played 400 innings at shortstop, most of the time out of team necessity. Now, what could change this story is precisely that added value from Lee, who will probably stay at third base full-time next year when the talented Kaelen Culpepper gets the opportunity to play every day as the starting shortstop.

Culpepper still has many challenges to face, but in his short playing time when he debuted this year, he showed progress in his offensive skills. He played only 281 innings at shortstop and, although it is still too small a sample to draw major conclusions, the metrics revealed his range ability.

He will still have to work on double-play plays, but if Culpepper can become a consistent everyday player, then Lee would take care of third base and the Twins would have an infield with much greater expectations for long-term impact.