It’s July 20, 2023. The Minnesota Twins have won five of seven games coming out of the All-Star Break. But Byron Buxton has sat out the past two games in Seattle, trying to break out of an 0-22 slump.
“I’m still trying to figure it out,” Buxton said of the long stretches of free time a designated hitter must fill between at-bats. “I don’t know yet. I probably spend too much time in the [batting] cage. It’s not like old-school. You’ve got guys that go in and play a PlayStation, guys that go in there and put on their headphones and listen to music, or whatever. So it’s a little bit different.
“I mean, I’m probably overthinking it a little bit, so [a couple of days off] makes sense,” Buxton said. “Just trying to get back to being who I am.”
The Twins made Buxton their DH to start last season, hoping he could get healthy enough to play the outfield by May. But Buxton’s knees continued to pain him, and he never returned to center field. Buxton went 0-for-4 that day in Seattle but got off the schneid with a 2-for-4 game against the Chicago White Sox a day later.
Buxton took his final regular-season at-bat in St. Louis on August 1, and he only had one plate appearance in the postseason. He finished the year hitting .207/.294/.438 (98 OPS+). Looking back at last season, Buxton said he dwelled on his at-bats because he had idle time in the dugout when he’d usually be out in center field.
“Even though you try to tell yourself you’ve got to flip the page because you’ve got to go back up there, you’re still, in the back of your head, like, ‘All right, he just struck me out on this slider. I’m not going to swing at this slider,’” Buxton said at spring training this year. “And what do you do the next at-bat? You swing at that slider. You know? That’s part of it. That’s part of it. You just really trick your mind and trick who you are a lot when you DH because you’ve got that much time to think.”
The Twins didn’t intend to make Buxton their DH for the entire season. “Load management is the NBA term,” Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said at spring training last year. “It’s probably a fair term to use just because we think about games and reps in center field, games and reps at DH. Those are different stresses every day, obviously. It’s more: How do we maintain his health through the course of the season as much as we can?”
“What’s important to me is that (Buxton) is ready to go out there on Opening Day and Game 2 and Game 3 and Game 4 and be prepared to help us win and be in the lineup a vast majority of the time,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “If he’s in the lineup, I like our chances. … The best thing to do is to make sure he’s in the lineup as much as possible. Continue to keep him in a great spot physically, and then see what the rest of April and what May brings.”
Minnesota’s plans didn’t work out last year. But Buxton says the pain is fully gone, and he’s ready to reclaim center field this year. “Excited now that I know I’m not DHing,” Buxton admitted. “That’s always exciting to be normal and go out there and be what you was doing before all the injuries. A little more nervous, I guess, for that first fly ball. I’ve not seen a fly ball in a couple of years. It’s pretty nerve-wracking. But, just talking to the guys for a couple of weeks, and I’ll be back to normal.”
Buxton had his best season in 2017. He played 140 games, hit .253/.314/.413 (191 OPS+), and earned a Gold Glove. Buxton only played 28 games in 2018 but slashed .258/.316/.558 (136 OPS+) from 2019 to 2022. The issue with Buxton isn’t that he can’t hit. It’s that he could only play an average of 70 games per year, and he’s less productive at the plate when he can’t play in the outfield.
“Last year, I had a couple of games where I don’t get a hit,” said Buxton, “and defensively, I’m like, one diving catch, and I can take my mind off this at-bat. When you don’t have that distraction, which was something I tried to find all last year, it’s harder to do that when what you love to do is taken away from you.”
As Buxton has battled injury, the conversation has shifted from his otherworldly play in the outfield to whether he’ll ever stay healthy. It’s unfortunate, given that Buxton’s play has driven winning for the Twins when he’s on the field. Health will always be a concern for Buxton, and Minnesota baked availability bonuses into his contract. But Buxton enters this season pain-free and will return to the outfield. He’s whole again, and that could make all the difference.
