Fans have become more frustrated with Byron Buxton than other contemporary Minnesota Twins stars. They desperately want him to be the five-tool player he had been in high school and as a top prospect in the minor leagues. Unfortunately, injuries have always seemed to stall the Buck Truck’s momentum.
Still, he’s a successful player. Now a veteran who finished up his 10th big league season, Buxton has a .244/.304/.476 with 133 home runs, 93 stolen bases, and collected 22.2 fWAR with a 113 wRC+. Injuries and inconsistency have limited him from getting the national recognition he would receive if he could accumulate the production of an entire season’s workload. After he missed a month from August 18 to September 12, the team went 8-13 and started their collapse.
It’s easy to write this off as another lost season for the Twins center fielder. While it may not have been a perfect campaign, Buxton still found a way to put together one of the best seasons of his career.
With Buxton, we must always start with whether he could stay on the field. The 2017 season was the biggest outlier of the bunch, with 140 games played. However, the recurring statistic since then is that Buxton could not play above 100 games outside of the 2017 campaign.
Minnesota tried to get creative with ways to keep him on the field. Two years ago, they gave him multiple rest days between starts in center field and wrote him in the lineup exclusively as a designated hitter last season. Both plans fell apart, and Buxton returned to being the primary center fielder. Even with many injuries, Buxton’s 102 games played in 2024 were the most in a season since 2017.
When everything clicks, the 2021 season is the gold standard for Buxton. He had a .306/.358/.647 slash line with 19 home runs, a staggering 171 wRC+, and an plus-8 OAA in center field over 61 games played that season. However, despite his incredible first-half run, his left hand was hit by a pitch. As a result, he missed two months with a fractured hand and stopped what would have been an MVP year.
Buxton didn’t qualify for any league-wide awards last year. Still, he was highly productive. Buxton drove, winning with a .279/.335/.524 slash line with 18 home runs and a 3 OAA over 94 appearances in center field. Buxton generated a 3.7 fWAR and 142 wRC+, the highest since the 2021 season.
He had a slow first month, with a .678 OPS over 27 games. After missing time with a knee injury, it took two weeks for Buxton to get going again. Then he showed why he’s a face of the franchise player by putting together two months of solid baseball, going .307/.364/.607 with a 172 wRC+ and 10 home runs over 42 games from June 1 through Aug. 1.
Buxton didn’t change his game much. He just stayed healthy. Buxton came into spring training admitting he was the healthiest he’d been in a long time. A healthier Buxton meant he didn’t need to sell out on the big swings and use his whole body at the plate.
He hit for power but took advantage of his ability to slash the ball down the baseline and in the gaps to reach 27 doubles in 2024. Only in 2019, with the Bomba Squad and a juiced ball, did Buxton hit more doubles (30). He still struck out, but a 25.5% strikeout clip wasn’t ideal. It was still his lowest strikeout rate since 2021.
Last season, Buxton was one of Minnesota’s most productive players outside Carlos Correa. A .840 OPS with 2 home runs and a 139 wRC+ over 12 games since returning to the lineup on September 13 gave Minnesota some offensive production down the stretch. The production ultimately became futile, but the Twins would have had a peaking Buxton had they made the playoffs.
Buxton is unlikely to play 130 games in a campaign, meaning he can’t drive winning throughout the season. However, the 2024 season showed us the blueprint for the best, most realistic version of Buxton. Going forward, there isn’t a foolproof strategy for keeping Buxton consistently healthy.
The Twins should continue to protect Buxton, but injuries are random events. Everything the team has done to mitigate the injuries doesn’t seem to fix the issue. The team risks limiting the time it has its best player on the field when he is healthy.
There’s no magic formula for consistently keeping a player with Buxton’s injury history on the field. This season, he has also proved that a 100-plus game season from Buxton is possible despite his injury history and limited intervention from the team.
Prime Buxton can be one of the best players in the sport. Injuries have impeded his on-field production and changed the bar for what a successful Buxton season looks like. Despite the slow start, Buxton rebounded and put together one of the best seasons of his career. A Byron Buxton who can perform that well for over 100 games, will be a productive force for the Twins.