Dillon Lewis wants 20-20 seasons to be a given part of his baseball identity.
The Marlins’ No. 11 prospect was well on his way to achieving that during his first year with the organization until a hamate bone fracture in his right hand required surgery, sidelining him for seven weeks. Lewis would finish with a .242/.302/.460 slash line, 12 doubles, four triples, 18 homers and 20 steals in 89 games for Double-A Pensacola.
“Unfortunately fell a couple homers short,” Lewis said. “I like to kind of base my game off of the power/speed and also being able to field. But coming up short with the homers was definitely a little bit, I guess, frustrating, but in a way I understood why.”
The right-handed-hitting Lewis recalled feeling discomfort in his right wrist for a while, then undergoing an MRI to instead reveal the hamate issue on his top hand -- something one doesn’t see often with that type of injury. The belief was that he might’ve had a small fracture at some point that got progressively worse over the course of thousands of swings.
Like Marlins No. 13 prospect Brandon Compton, Lewis learned how to rehab a hamate injury. It took a couple of days to get mobility back in his fingers. A week after the surgery, he started moving around with a soft cast at the Jupiter Academy. Strengthening the ring and pinky fingers and building grip strength became paramount.
Though Lewis returned on Aug. 14, he notched just four extra-base hits with 29 strikeouts and two walks in 103 plate appearances through the end of the season. Until the season's final week, he was still feeling the pain that he had been dealing with before. Lewis had been heavily taping his wrist and taking some anti-inflammatories to manage it.
“There was definitely a little bit of difference in the swing, just in terms of, I knew I wasn't necessarily swinging with the same impact,” Lewis said. “That was a big part of my game before. It was hitting the ball hard, hitting the ball in the air and doing things like that.”
So when the Marlins asked Lewis to participate in the Arizona Fall League, it was a “no-brainer.”
“It was a pretty easy yes for me,” Lewis said. “Understanding, like you said, that missed time, and it's important, I think for me personally, to build that confidence up again. I'm able to feel like I'm playing healthy for the first time in a very, very long time. … I did have weeks where I felt like I was not competing at the level that I had set for myself early on in the year, but now I'm able to make all that up."
Entering Friday, Lewis was batting .275/.333/.451 with six doubles, one homer, nine RBIs and one steal in 13 games for Glendale in the AFL.
This time in the AFL also helps put in motion his offseason goal of improving the strength in his hand to gain full confidence going into next spring. With so many left-handed outfield bats on the big league roster and in the upper levels of the Minors, Lewis stands out.
The 23-year-old Lewis remembers president of baseball operations Peter Bendix mentioning how much his ability to track balls down in the outfield was valued.
According to MLB Pipeline’s scouting report, Lewis has 60-grade run and 55-grade power tools. His arm and field are both 50 grade. He has the makings of an all-around player.
“I understand what my strengths are,” Lewis said. “I don't really sit around and it's like, ‘Oh, there's like six or seven or eight lefty guys where they're at.’ But it is, ‘I know my skill set as a right-handed-hitting outfielder with power and being able to play the field like I can.’
"That's a valuable asset for any team really. It is a cool thing sometimes to be like, ‘OK, well, there really aren't too many.’ So it's like, ‘OK, well, how good can I get myself to be where it's able to make an impact at that level?’”