The Twins announced that designated hitter Byron Buxton has been placed on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to June 3, with a left rib contusion. Outfielder Trevor Larnach was reinstated from the IL in a corresponding move.
Buxton, 29, has frequently had his health in the spotlight in his career. He’s one of the most talented players in the league when healthy but has struggled to maintain his production over extended stretches due to various injuries. He’s hit .252/.317/.541 since the start of 2019 for a wRC+ of 132 but hasn’t topped 92 games played in any of those campaigns.
The Twins were keenly aware of the ongoing concerns with Buxton when they signed him to a seven-year, $100MM extension going into 2022, though one with millions more available via incentives based on MVP voting. They hoped to keep him healthy this year by limiting him in the designated hitter role. That deprives him of some value since he’s no longer able to provide his typically excellent outfield defense, but it was hoped that it would at least allow him to stay in the lineup longer.
That plan hit a bump in the road when Buxton was drilled in the ribs by a pitch on Thursday last week. The club didn’t place him on the IL right away, taking a few days to see how the situation developed. It seems that the issue lingered long enough that they will give him at least another week off to recuperate. Prior to this injury, he hit .220/.325/.445 this year for a wRC+ of 115.
Losing Buxton’s bat surely isn’t a welcome development for the club, but one silver lining is that it should give him them a bit more flexibility to rotate other players through the DH slot and give them some partial off-days. Various players on the team having been dealing with minor injuries of late, including Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis, Jorge Polanco, Alex Kirilloff and Larnach.
I like watching him play… but overrated is the word for him. And he’s Al always hurt. He’s like a mini Stanton
Always hurt because half the time pitchers are hurting him. Can’t blame someone for standing in the batter’s box.
The slamming into a wall stuff is all him.
Cleveland took him out.
If they gain ground while he’s on the IL, this might be a full blown headhunting rivalry by August
Hahaha
Nobody tries to take an “above average” hitter out when they’re batting .147/.256/.235 wRC+ 45 over the past 10 games. Besides, you don’t need to “take Buxton out” when he’ll take himself out many times throughout the season.
Aside from that, nobody cares.
Because 10 games tells us much of anything about a player.
10 games means nothing. That’s a silly statement.
It’s even sillier to think opponents have no idea who is swinging a hot bat. The Buxton apologists are the most sincerely obnoxious group of people on MLB fan sites…
His nickname should be Mr. Glass instead of Buck.
Buck is short for buckle.
Or Buckcuz he’s soft
He may not be buck.
What a shocking development!
Most injured team in the MLB! Too injured to contend
Injured while playing every game at DH this year lol
Pay attention. He was drilled in the ribs with a 97mph fastball.
Even better news
@Col Taylor. Pay attention. Getting hit by a pitch happens to a lot of batters and they don’t even leave the game. Buxton is made of glass. The IL trip is honestly probably a cover for his balky knee acting up again so much he can’t be asked to step into the outfield.
Yet in 1st place in that trash division
deGrom and Buxton should be teammates
He must of sneezed. Hope that is covered in the Contract Insurance.
Actually he took a 98 mph pitch to the ribs. I was at the game. It looked painful.
Nobody cares. The pitch didn’t hit him in the head. It didn’t hit him in the wrist or elbow. It didn’t cause a fracture. Most of the time, the batter would take their base and stay in the game.
I could see a trade between the Royals and the Twins.
Scott Barlow, Aroldis Chapman and Salvador Perez for Jorge Lopez, Emelia Pagan and Christiaan Vasquez..
The Royals would save the prorated portion of the Royals 29 million in salary for the Twins $16,625 million in 2023. The Royals would continue to have a slightly younger quality catcher for $10 million less per year than Perez. Like Barlow, Lopez is still under team control through 2024.. Both Lopez and Pagan are previous closers. Lopez and Barlow are the same age. Pagan is younger that Chapman. Perez does have more pop at catcher that Vasquez, but Vasquez has a quality glove and hits for a decent average for a catcher.
Like Pagan, Chapman is a rental, and the Twins need to get into a “win-now” mode. Perez has 12 HR this year compared to 0 from Vasquez. Perez BA of .282 over 54 games also is a positive over Vasquez’s ..248 over 38 games.
The Royals would save a ton of money, not only in 2023 but through 2025 without much of a drop in quality of there players, and have all three they acquire back for 2026..
The Twins would have a better chance to win in 2023, and would have Perez back through 25 with an option in 2026, and Barlow under team control in 2024.
Perez will be life Royal. They decided long ago he would be left over face from last contender window. And good decision too because it coulda been Moose or Hosmer. Ugh.
At least they got a trophy out of it. More than many teams can say over the last few decades.
That is a pretty reasonable trade. Kudos.
…how?
Dude, this trade is ridiculous.
The Royals would be trading a perennial all-star catcher who has three years of control for a worse catcher w/ less control. They’d be exchanging great relievers for worse ones with the same amount of control. That’s not how trades work with rebuilding clubs.
The Royals would want prospects with control, not older veterans on short-term deals. Good luck trying to pass this trade off to anyone who isn’t a Twins homer
one of the more stupider trades ive seen on this site, royals trade their best vet players for the twins worst vet players
GENIUS
An annual summer baseball event…hot dogs, popcorn and Buxton getting hurt !
I’m on the IL with a rib injury, too. Or it might be for the fractured elbow I got at the same time? Whichever, life goes on.
Death, taxes, and…
I wish you would quit referring to the DH as a day off. If your on the baseball field in any capacity it’s not a day off.
You can’t really blame BB for getting plunked in the ribs. What did the Twins pitchers do to protect their batters?
They didn’t retaliate, that’s how. Playing like childish felons only causes more injuries or ejections for your own guys down the road when you need them. That and intentionally throwing a baseball at someone 90+ should be illegal.
I bet Hall of Famers Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, and even Jim Kaat would disagree with you or do you refer to them as ‘childish felons? If you can’t protect your own batter with even a ‘brush back’ pitch you aren’t protecting your own batters.
Hall of Famers Bob Gibson and Don Drysdale are dead and buried. The game has changed a bit in the past 50 years. For the better.
The plastic man
Wait Buxton on the IL? How is this not surprising. Poor guy just seems to continue to get banged up.
Bibee should have been immediately suspended for hitting a batter with a thrown ball that resulted in lost time due to the resulting injury. Totally unfair in that neither the pitcher or the Cleveland team suffers any consequences while the Twins lose the services of Buxton for an as yet undetermined amount of time. The, “OOPS, S-O-R-R-Y, Well, it’s just part of the game” from Bibee and the Guardians organization just isn’t enough of an offsetting penalty.
Whether the player injured by the thrown pitch, is making multi millions or the league minimum, doesn’t matter. An injury has been caused. A penalty needs to be imposed. MLB needs to step-up.
Cleveland’s second baseman Andres Gimenez was hit by a pitch 25 times last season alone. Should all of those pitchers have been suspended? Be serious.
Playing devils advocate here, did Gimenez miss any time due to those 25 HBPs? Anyways, point of the article was pointing out that MIN has kept one of the best defensive OFs in the DH slot all year to protect him from injury…and he still gets injured frequently.
Only in the instances when Gimenez lost playing time due to injury as a result.
If MLB is truly committed to prevent injury to batters due to pitched balls,
it can:
#1 Implement an improved substance/method for pitchers to grip baseballs.
#2 Strictly enforce forbidding batters from obliterating the lines that define the batter’s box.
#3 Forbid that any part of the batter’s anatomy extend beyond the imaginary line that extends vertically upward from the batter’s box as defined on the ground.
#4 Redefine and move the position of the batter’s box further back from the plate.
So I see you are new to baseball.
And tomorrow is Wednesday. Rinse and repeat.
They tried to hide him at DH but by god, injury found a way.