5:21pm: Minnesota will reevaluate Buxton after a two-week shutdown, bench coach Jayce Tingler tells reporters (including Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com). He’ll obviously be out beyond a minimal stay.
4:52pm: The Twins placed designated hitter Byron Buxton on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to August 2, with a strained right hamstring. Waiver claim Jordan Luplow takes his spot on the active roster.
Buxton had a brief IL stay a couple months ago with a rib issue. More notably, overarching right knee problems have kept the former Gold Glove winner off the field defensively. All 80 of Buxton’s appearances this season have come as a DH. He’s connected on 17 home runs but is hitting just .207 with a .294 on-base percentage.
It’s unclear how long the Twins anticipate Buxton being out of action. Matt Wallner gets the nod at designated hitter tonight against Arizona right-hander Merrill Kelly. The 25-year-old Wallner could earn regular run — at least versus right-handed pitching — in Buxton’s absence. He’s hitting .254/.369/.584 in 27 big league games after a .291/.403/.524 showing at Triple-A St. Paul.
Buxton? I thought he was already on the IL.
He was out on paternity leave recently, but hasn’t been on the IL for a while. He came back from paternity leave and almost immediately pulled his hamstring running out a double.
Should have been out on maternity leave.
This is dumb and disrespectful – but it made me laugh. Sigh.
Buxton was in the IL at the beginning of the season with a rib issue.
Déjá vü, where are you
First time in his career I believe.
I think you’re right. It really is a shame. I’m pretty sure this dude was like a dozen games away from breaking Ripken’s record.
I didn’t realize he only has 1 season with at least 100 games played
He gets injured so often he could play for the Yankees.
Give him a $20 million dollar per year contract until his late 30s and he’s on his way to his own Yankeeography on YES network 🙂
It’s comical at this point
This guy has been the most over rated player in MLB since he arrived.
He’s only been particularly highly rated since his 2021 171 OPS+ in less than 100 games. Most overrated is overly hyperbolic.
Gotta at least come up with a name that’s more overrated here.
@Ilike sports
He was at one time the #1 ranked prospect in baseball and he was drafted 2nd overall. He Hass been highly rated the entire time he’s been in the league or an affiliated leagues.
I was going to suggest Eloy Jimenez, but you might be right
@StephCurryRetiresWith8Rings – Yes, and much of the sports media and Twins fans think/thought he was a virtual MVP-lock (10+ WAR full season player) if he played a full season, which he never will. He’s a 5.0-6.0 WAR full season CF. That’s very good, but hardly MVP-worthy.
Again. There is not a single season in MLB where the 10th ranked player in WAR is less than 6.5 bWAR. Not one. 4-6 WAR is All Star, not a chance at MVP.
5.0 fWAR is ranked like 23rd among “position” players last year.
6.0 fWAR would have ranked 16th.
In the AL last year, here are the votes
Aaron Judge #1 – 10.6 bWAR
Shohei Ohtani #2 – 9.6 bWAR
Yordan Alvarez #3 – 6.8 bWAR
There is ONE position player in the top 10 for AL vote getters for MVP last year with less than 5.9 bWAR, and that’s Jose Altuve, #5 in the voting.
When you think of garbage don’t think of akeem think of glass buxton
Obviously is right.
Now just shelve Correa. He’s obviously still dealing with plantar fasciitisisisis.
Bad feet AND a member of isis..? OMG.
Needs offseason body replacement surgery.
Bionicize him – none of his original parts are salvageable, at this point.
How do you have such insider information relating to his dong and huevos?
Also why does his browneye need replacing?
Horrible contract is horrible
High risk high reward contract. This is not a novel scenario.
Doesn’t mean said risk should have been taken.
If you’re a small or mid market team, I think you make that deal almost 100% of the time. You can’t rely on getting a player like 2021 Buxton in free agency (although the CC signing discredits me there). Before Buck, the Twins biggest contract was Joe Mauer. In 2006. Hindsight is 2020. I don’t recall many people arguing against the deal at the time.
He only played 61 games in 2021. Yes he was very productive when on the field. But up until 2021 in the 4 full seasons he played he missed significant time in 3 of those seasons. He also missed 22 games his lone somewhat healthy season which was only season he played over 100 games.
So no his extension was in no way a deal a small market team should make 100% of the time. With small market teams limited resources, it is imperative that the highest paid players are on the field and available often. And with his injury, it was “100%” foreseeable that he’d likely continue to have injury issues.
@Ilikesports – No, you don’t. If you’re a smart small/mid market team with clear indicators of how the league views Buxton as limited value (as the Twins front office did when they could find exactly 0 buyers for him in 2021), you don’t sign a guy to a 6 year extension.
The base AAV isn’t bad, and if Buxton were to hit the incentives, it’d be fine. The years are preposterous. Any team would have been able to get Buxton for 3yrs $50MM in free agency. ANY TEAM.
@Steph for most part I agree with taking risks on players. However with Buxton I think he’s an exception. He had only played 100+ games once before the extension. He had already developed a lengthy injury history and a pattern of missing time. If it was not a team with a limited payroll it would not really b an issue. However for the Twins that is a real issue. The contract should have at least been more of an incentive based contract or included options and buyouts.
Ultimately they just blindly took a risk that Buxton would do something he never has down, put together a string of somewhat healthy seasons. Or even back to back healthy seasons for that matter.
He was exclusively playing DH this year and he is yet again on IL….
@StephCurryRetiresWith8Rings – He’s doing great at DH only this year. 0.7 fWAR. wRC+ 99 after a nice explosion at the plate to lift his numbers.
Finding a 1.5 WAR DH doesn’t usually break the bank.
I’ll take Frequently Injured MLB players for $500.
I’ll give you “frequently injured MLB players” for $500; what good are they really?
Good for negative WAR.
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, uhh
War, huh, yeah
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again, y’all
War, huh (good God)
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing, listen to me, oh
Twins healing up for the playoffs while rest of the league has to actually compete for playoff spots in professional baseball divisions XD
Correa gonna get a massage now.
Update Water is still wet and Buxton is on the IL
Actually, water is not wet. It is a liquid that makes things wet.
“Water is not wet”..He maybe should’ve said that Buxton is still brittle and frail and that will never change, right?
Dude is made of glass.
OK, who had August fourth?
thanks for a funny, decently orinigal comment
And in other news, water is wet.
At this point the Twins should just cut him loose. Sure they’ll eat all that money, but this is ridiculous. Heck when Schmidt knew he couldn’t perform anymore he knew to call it quits. Learn from Schmidt, Buxton.
That is a terrible stat to go with. He can’t even make 100 games save for that one season. Have him play a full season w/o a dozen injuries and we’ll talk.
@StephCurryRetiresWith8Rings. You’re pretty confident how WAR works despite not understanding how WAR works.
It’s not a counting stat. WAR can and does go backwards.
As a side note, Buxton is always hurt and apologist superfans like yourself almost always say “if he wasn’t injured” he’d be amount better. Baseball players are frequently dealing with nagging discomfort, bumps, bruises, twisted ankles, sore muscles, etc. All players push through that stuff. Buxton has chronic knee, back, and migraine issues. They will never go away. In addition, he’s prone to hamstring pulls and seems to be injury prone outside that.
There’s something called a roster and something called a guaranteed salary. Teams can only put 40 men on their roster and only 26 players on their active roster. Players like Buxton take up 2 spots on the roster. 1 for the player, and 1 for the player you need to back up Buxton. There’s a cost to that. Aside from that, Buxton is a 1.3-1.5 WAR player (in 162 games which he can’t theoretically play) this year as a DH.
Most overrrated player in the majors, bar none.
He could be one of the best in the league if he wasn’t injured all the time.
Not the best, the bust.
Twins need to get Buxton a full time physical therapist and never have that person leave his side 24/7/365. This guy has probably spent as much time injured as he has on the active roster since he made it to MLB.
Would he be at the top of those who have gone to the IL list most often among all the active players?
Buxton might just go down as one of the most “What could have been” players in Major League history. In 2021-2022, Buxton hit nearly 50 home runs (47), had an OPS over .900, and OPS+ of 149. Defensively, he had 18 defensive runs saved, and 15 outs above average. He had 8.6 bWAR and 8.1 fWAR. Those two seasons were basically a full year of playing time combined (153 games, 636 plate appearances). If peak healthy Buxton is a 45-50 home run hitter with maybe the best outfield defense in the league, he could have been the next Andruw Jones, maybe with a little more longevity.
Injuries are a sob
No season in the past 10 years has had any of the top 10 players at less than 6.5 bWAR.
5.1 bWAR getting significant MVP votes (other than from the hometown writer) is far from guaranteed.
Anytime I hear the Twins I think of their top players always hampered by injuries or becoming prone. Mauer had his share, Buxton, Correa…every team has their share, it just always seems to be their top players in recent history.
I came to see if they just copied and pasted this article from a prior a
buxton injury
Buxton has been on the IL his whole career
When is he not on the IL?