Did the Twins make a mistake by re-signing Byron Buxton?
November 2021 was a tough time for the Minnesota Twins. The Twins had just finished in last place in the American League Central and Major League Baseball was about to lock out its players. Another looming storyline was the status of Byron Buxton, who was entering the final year of team control and was looking for a massive payday.
With hours to spare before the lockout became official, the Twins gave their fans some good news by signing Buxton to a seven-year, $100 million contract. But less than two years into this deal, it looks like another mistake by the front office, who invested in another player that didn't turn out the way they thought.
You have go to back to the beginning of Buxton's career to understand this story. Buxton was one of the top prospects in all of baseball and was anointed a franchise savior playing next to Miguel Sanó. His initial call to the majors came at just 21 years old but he didn't have immediate success like some of the other top players, hitting .230/.285/.387 with 28 home runs and 99 RBI in his first four seasons.
Buxton's real breakout didn't come until the 2019 season when he used an approach to produce more power at the plate. The change in philosophy helped Buxton have the best three-year stretch of his career, hitting .277/.321/.576 with 42 home runs and 105 RBI but he played in just half of the Twins games due to a variety of injuries.
Some of the injuries could have been avoided as Buxton played a reckless but spectacular game in center field. Others were bad luck such as getting hit by a pitch or pulling a hamstring. Either way, it created a pivotal 2021 season.
Buxton played in just 61 games in 2021 but he posted career averages across the board, hitting .306/.358/.647 with 19 homers. His contract was becoming due and Twins fans were pleading with the franchise to spend money to keep their homegrown talent.
This made sense because Twins fans had seen this movie before. Every player that has left the organization over the past five seasons has hit another level as soon as they put on another uniform and seeing Buxton go somewhere else to become the next Luis Arráez or David Ortiz would have been another mistake by a front office has trouble projecting their own talent.
The final decision was a compromise between the two sides. Buxton would get paid and have plenty of incentives in his contract for plate appearances and where he finished in MVP voting. Many applauded the Twins for using a creative approach to keep Buxton in Minnesota but it also should have been a warning sign.
It took Buxton seven games into the new contract to get hurt as he tweaked his knee sliding into second base. The Twins downplayed it as a freak occurrence but Buxton's didn't look the same as the team used a hyper-conservative approach to keep their star healthy.
Once Buxton became unavailable at key moments, it was revealed that the Twins had a plan dating back to the offseason with the goal of getting Buxton to play in 100 games due to a chronic condition in his knee. He gutted through the pain to make his first career All-Star appearance but was shut down over the final weeks of the season as the Twins fell out of contention in the American League Central.
An optimist would believe that Buxton simply had another lost season but that hasn't been the case.
Buxton began this season as the designated hitter with the premise that he would eventually take over in center field. The Twins covered for this in the short term by trading for Michael A. Taylor but Buxton has yet to play in the outfield this season, which creates several problems for Rocco Baldelli.
In a perfect world, the Twins could jumpstart their offense by having Buxton return to center field as Taylor has been miscast as an everyday player, hitting .228/.270/.435 with 10 homers and 22 RBI. While this would put Taylor in a more suitable role, it would also give the Twins the freedom to get another bat into their struggling lineup, freeing up at-bats for younger players such as Alex Kirilloff, Royce Lewis and Trevor Larnach.
But Buxton doesn't appear to be close to making a return to the outfield and his performance at the plate has been another issue the Twins have had to sort out.
In 53 games this season, Buxton is hitting just .206/.308/.418 with 10 homers and 23 RBI – on a par with Taylor. While he's posted a career-high 11.8 percent walk rate, his 29.5 percent strikeout rate is his highest since he struck out in 29.8 percent of his at-bats in 2018.
Buxton's numbers get worse when you consider that he's hitting .217/.307/.487 in 145 games since signing the contract. Since the divisional era began in 1969, only six players have had a lower batter's line with a minimum of Buxton's 605 plate appearances – and one of them is a former Twin.
Brian Dozier had a similar career with the Twins, getting off to a slow start before going on a power surge midway through his career. From 2015-17, Dozier hit .258/.335/.496 with 104 home runs, but his breakout came in 2016 when he hit .268/.340/.546 with 42 home runs.
Dozier's big year forced the Twins' front office to make their first big decision. After shopping their star throughout the 2017 season, the Twins held on a year too long and Dozier hit .227/.307/.405 in 104 games with Minnesota before being traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers for Devin Smeltzer and Logan Forsythe in July 2018.
At 29, Buxton is one year younger than when Dozier fell off the cliff, but he is still heading in that direction. His struggles at the plate, which included an 0-for-4 performance with three strikeouts in Saturday's win over the Tigers, have greatly impacted the Twins offense who enter Sunday 25th in batting average, 22nd in on-base percentage, 15th in slugging percentage and first with 728 strikeouts.
It's created a crisis where the Twins paid Buxton as a player who could provide elite production at the plate while playing Gold Glove-caliber defense in the outfield. At this point, they're not getting either and still have five more years to try and jerry-rig Buxton into the lineup.
Not all of this is Buxton's fault as most of his injuries have been freak occurrences. But this also falls on the front office, who were so concerned about his injury history that they loaded Buxton's contract with incentives. Even if the fan base would have revolted by letting Buxton walk out the door, it would have been justified knowing what we know now.
The Twins need Buxton to play at the level he's capable of, otherwise, the front office made another mistake in a tenure that has been loaded with them.
