The Twins won’t recall center fielder Byron Buxton from Triple-A Rochester this season, in part because the left wrist issue he has been dealing with throughout the summer is “still lingering,” general manager Thad Levine said Saturday (via Dan Hayes of The Athletic; subscription required). But the decision to not bring the 24-year-old Buxton back to the majors this season is likely more related to his service time, suggests Hayes, who notes they’re now in position to control him through 2022 instead of 2021. Levine did acknowledge the service time as a factor, saying: “We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we weren’t at least aware of service-time impacts on decisions we make.” Levine added Buxton’s agent is “displeased, disappointed for sure,” though the GM would like to “make amends” with Buxton at some point so as not to damage the sides’ relationship. At this time in 2017, Buxton was a cornerstone player for the playoff-bound Twins, potentially setting himself up for a lucrative extension. A year later, he and the Twins have endured a year to forget. Injuries helped limit Buxton to a .156/.183/.200 line with no home runs and 28 strikeouts against three walks in 94 major league plate appearances. He was much better at Triple-A, hitting .272/.331/.456 with four HRs in 148 PAs, though he did post a 28.4 percent strikeout rate.
More from Minnesota and two other AL cities…
- The White Sox have reinstated catcher Welington Castillo from the 10-day disabled list, putting him in position to play for the first time since May 23. Castillo landed on the DL with shoulder inflammation on Aug. 23, which came after he served an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs. Castillo, whom the White Sox signed to a two-year, $15MM contract last winter, began his season well before the suspension, as he hit .267/.309/.466 with six HRs in 123 PAs. While he was out, Chicago primarily turned to Omar Narvaez behind the plate, and he has quietly been among the game’s best offensive backstops this season (.284/.374/.432 in 264 PAs).
- Major League Baseball has suspended Yankees manager Aaron Boone one game and issued him an undisclosed fine stemming from his ejection on Friday, David Lennon of Newsday was among those to report. Boone, livid with home plate umpire Nic Lentz’s strike zone, was thrown out after a tirade in which the bill of his cap made contact with Lentz’s (video here). He’ll sit out Sunday’s game against Detroit, while bench coach Josh Bard will manage the Yankees.
- With help from his family, just-acquired Twins catcher Chris Gimenez will decide in the offseason whether to continue his career, Mike Berardino of the Pioneer Press tweets. The 35-year-old journeyman has racked up 1,033 major league PAs since debuting in 2009, including 225 with Minnesota last season, though he has spent the majority of this season with the Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate.
Byron Buston is more like it, amiright?
Zing
No he was just hurt all year this year
Well, Boonie, GOTEMMM!!
Good to see some fire from Boonie.
Just what the yanks needed
Joe, God was he ticked.. lol
I hope Gimenez doesn’t retire. Him and Wilson are literally the definition of backup catcher.
That umpire should have been suspended and issued a fine. Did you see that strike zone?
Yes, what a disgrace, they are wrong anyway with their calls that the video tape shows. How embarrassing.
So today Joe West takes a card away that pitcher on the mound had in his pocket, and boy was he wrong, that was not a even considered a foreign substance. He is such a Hitler. a meanie!! He loves to make a scene!
Mlb definitely needs to get control of the umpires and make some changes to get better results whether that’s holding them to a higher standard or automating some of their duties.
Buxton is definitely on the edge of being a bust, but then again he’s still only 24 years old. I got to see him play w Rochester a couple of weeks ago and he looked ok. Nothing spectacular, but he ran down a couple of shots in the gap to make some pretty impressive catches. I wonder if the Twins and White Sox could swing a deal during the off-season where Buxton ends up on the South Side patrolling CF and Wellington Castillo ends up behind the dish in Minny?
Maybe a bust for bust swap of moncada for buxt
on
Moncada needs to cut down on those strikeouts but he still has the power. I see more upside in Moncada but we shall see
Hahaha. Good try.
Lol buxton still has more value than that
Buxton has always put up good numbers in the minors, but he has looked completely overmatched in the majors, other than that 1 stretch last year
Torii Hunter took awhile to find his swing when he was first called up as he often references. I’m not ready to throw in the towel on Buxton yet. I just hope he doesn’t evolve into a 1-tool player like Hamilton.
Buxton isn’t in the same defensive league as Hunter.
Yeah buxton is better… look at the numbers
I did. Going on the same amount of seasons the numbers I saw from baseball reference, Hunter was better. Going on watching them play, Hunter was better.
You should see Hunter’s son, Torii Jr. He plays great defense with incredible range, and he’s way faster than his dad. Still learning to hit, but does really well, considering he took off 4 years to play football.
That is a ridiculously uninformed statement.
I’d rather see buxton playing everyday rather than Grossman who has no future with us or Kepler who is shouldn’t be a everyday player. But in this lost season I agree with shutting him down early and keeping that extra year of control.
Kepler isn’t an everyday player? Is it the lefty righty split?
give yoan time to get things figured out. it has worked out for TA this year. the Sox are in a rebuild and the kid has time. bixton brings defense at best, which the Sox have in Engel.
The threshold for making it in the MLB, as a player, is so high, that only a small percentage even make it to the bigs, and among those who make it, most only last a few years and are washed out.
Meanwhile, the threshold for umps is obviously just a pretense. A threshold isn’t really a threshold, if no one ever falls short of it. Once they make it into the league (through an obscure selection process), they last until retirement age (or beyond, which is just absurd), when you can obviously see that a lot of them aren’t even trying to call an accurate strike zone. Meanwhile, the commissioner goes around telling everyone what high standards he has for umps. Nonsense.
A meaningful threshold would be high enough to send at least the bottom 25% worst balls and strikes umps back to the minors at the end of each year. And then, next spring training should be a competition, same as for the players: get all the serious applicants down to Florida and Arizona, and, at the end of spring training, the best performers get to take over for the ones who got send down.
Oh yeah, and set the same half a mill. per year minimum wage players get, for umps. Good umpiring is worth that money, it would make the game significantly better.
To be fair, you could argue they have the hardest job in all of sports. a ball that small, moving that fast, with that much movement, having to know where it is in relation to the plate a couple feet ahead of you, with the catcher and the batter both trying their hardest to trick you?
No, you cannot argue they have the hardest job in sports – not with a straight face at least.
Mlb needs to wield their refined automatic strike zone technology to break up the umpire union and demand quality.
Levine, while obviously guarded with his comments, has opened up a can of worms by acknowledging service time being a factor. Yes, it’s absolutely the truth – EVERY team considers it, but merely acknowledging it leaves the door open for Buxton to file a grievance.
It’s ridiculous that something has to be maintained as a blatantly open secret in the first place, but as long as the rules are as they are, GM’s need to shoot down any questions regarding service time, or face the consequences.
He could file a grievance anyway. So what. Big deal. Let him file. Its a collectively bargained for benefit to be able to manipulate service time and last year on the new agreement the Union did nothing about it. So let him file a grievance. Who cares
You clearly have no clue about the implications here.