Was extending Buxton a mistake?

[Shobae]

On 6/15/2023 at 6:24 PM, Little Piranhas said:

BB has averaged @ 70 games a season over seven full seasons.  

Most recently he has been on the DL, this time for over two weeks, with “rib contusions”.  Every slide, every time he runs out a ground ball, every time he fouls all off a body part, hell every time he gives a high five we hold our collective breath that he might’ve gotten hurt.  

If we Twins fans are going to be honest with ourselves we need to expect 70 games from him (and probably trending down) as a .250 hitting DH with power.  Is that worth 15M/year?  Probably not. 

I know no one wants to say it, at least out load, but he seems soft.

Glad the twins daily resident physicians Little Piranhas and USAFChief have checked in to give us their medical opinions on Buxton physical health and injury status. It's almost criminal the Twins haven't already hired such talented and distinguished sports doctors to be on the team!

[NotAboutWinning]

7 hours ago, Trov said:

Remember his contract is only 100 mil if he plays limited time, but has bonuses built in if he plays more.  He can earh 2.5 mil more each year he gets enough plate appearances, no matter it CF or DH. He gets bonuses for where he ranks in MVP voting, less likely to get much of that if he is just DH.  

If he can hit like he has shown in past for stretches, he still has value as DH, but if he continues to struggle he will be a very overpaid DH. 

Wow, that clarifies the situation. They can't put him on a long IL stint or sit him on the bench without seriously affecting his compensation. I imagine there is a lot of pressure to keep him playing. This was a horrible way to structure a long term contract for a frequently injured star player.

[ashbury]

1 hour ago, NotAboutWinning said:

Wow, that clarifies the situation. They can't put him on a long IL stint or sit him on the bench without seriously affecting his compensation. I imagine there is a lot of pressure to keep him playing. This was a horrible way to structure a long term contract for a frequently injured star player.

It's not always easy to guess which incentives will have perverse outcomes.  The clear intent was to incentivize him to be as healthy as possible.  The catch is that the threshold benchmarks only measure part of a star player's performance; he's incentivized to be able to bat.

[Mike Sixel]

As a number of us have said:

 

[Danchat]

Seems like the training staff has put the kibosh on Buxton playing CF.

Edit: Ninja'd by Mike who posted the same tweet 30 seconds earlier... you win this round!

[Mike Sixel]

15 minutes ago, Danchat said:

Seems like the training staff has put the kibosh on Buxton playing CF.

Edit: Ninja'd by Mike who posted the same tweet 30 seconds earlier... you win this round!

Ha, I stole it from teh game thread, but lots of (smarter than me) people don't go to those.....

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

50 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

As a number of us have said:

 

Honestly, like you always say Mike, who cares what the manager says to the public?

Why should we believe a word of this? 🙂

[ewen21]

There are so many absurd conversations about this player, but this is not one of them.  It is only natural we discuss this.  You watch the broadcast of tonight's game and in his first ab they cut to Rocco trying to explain why he's not in the outfield and it makes me shake my head. because I have seen him steal some bases.  At this juncture,  I actually am not the least bit curious about WHY is not in CF.  I just deal in facts: and the facts are he is NOT playing CF, he isn't hitting, and (according to him) he doesn't like batting practice and didn't before games for a couple of years.  That is information he volunteered.  Take if for what it's worth. If I am going to offer up an opinion it is this: He simply doesn't get the reps to be a good hitter and he is a bad DH through the first half of this season.  

 

 

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

Honestly, like you always say Mike, who cares what the manager says to the public?

Why should we believe a word of this? 🙂

I've never said they lie.... Others here do. I've said post game comments just aren't interesting. Most interviews aren't. Ymmv, of course, and decide he's lying for some reason. 

[Beast]

No.  The contract is peanuts.  Despite his struggles and injuries, laying the FO’s and management’s incompetence even partially at feet of Buxton is asinine.  He’s been a well above average player in terms of WAR.  Undo even a small fraction of the awful trades, draft picks, signings, support staff blunders, etc. this FO has made and things look different….with or without Buxton’s contract.

The FO’s only job is to evaluate and assemble a collection of players that can win baseball games.  They are routinely crapping the bed on that regard, and that’s a kind way of putting it.

The mistake is hiring the current regime based on their coattail riding (in Falvey’s case - Levine hasnt been a part of a damn thing), and continuing the let them flounder despite what’s now approaching a decade of failures.  

Everyone points to 2019 as a redeeming quality of these guys and reason to stick with them indefinitely going forward.  They inherited 99% of that roster, won the lottery by having a juiced ball fall onto their face, and haven’t done a GD thing since.  I’m tired of the sugar coating and propaganda.  They flat out suck…..and there’s two of them doing one person’s job.

I listened to a bit of Skor North today, and they referred to it as Stockholm Syndrome.  That’s almost understating it….but the idea is spot on.  It’s unbelievable that the media (again, defacto on the Twins payroll….people scared to death of losing their status or getting the side eye from a Twins employee) is willing to die on this hill just to hobnob on the press box and locker room.

 

[NotAboutWinning]

It was a mistake because of how the contract is structured. He isn't paid to produce. He gets paid for showing up even if he is no condition to play. And he has been in no condition to play most of his career. Now they have hitched he compensation to that. They can't bench him or put him on the IL until he is a functioning CF again without highly impacting his compensation. It is another example of the FO being too smart for their own good.

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

I'm still a believer in Buxton and without Buxton, there's no Correa. And yes, I'm a believer in Correa as well. Put them with a different manager, and you have two superstar talents for the next 5+ years. It is a luxury for a franchise like the Twins. Time for the Pohlads to do the right thing and move on from Rocco.

[StormJH1]

This situation only becomes more and more baffling to me.  It's pain to read articles like the one from Gleeman in The Athletic yesterday because the entire thing is a story about his medical condition, and yet the only description of what the problem is are vague references to his "knee".  He's played 56 games this year exclusively as a DH, and the results are obviously very mediocre - .209 BA and .741 OPS.  

 

The explanation given by Rocco and the front office thus far - or at least as I interpreted it - was that he could play in CF and obviously would be more valuable there, but since that would increase the risk of injury and his removal from the lineup altogether, the organization was electing not to play him in the field.  I disagreed with that approach because while CF could add additional ways he could get injured (running into a wall, slipping on the warning track and tearing up his knee, etc.), much of Buxton's acute injury history happened on the basepaths or in the batter's box.  But it was at least a sound explanation as to why they felt they could keep him healthy.

 

Rocco's comment now is that he literally cannot play in the field.  I interpret that as "this is a chronic condition, it is not getting better", and he will be on the IL within days if we start asking him to also patrol the outfield.  That's a different explanation, and one that's a lot more concerning for his long-term outlook.  It also doesn't line up with the other stories we've heard, including the one where Correa talked to him before the season and said "wouldn't it be great if you could just DH and hit 40 or 50 HR's".  That version of the story had Buxton eager to play in the field, but being talked out of it by players and FO people who had different ideas about how he could be most productive for the team.  So, was Buxton "physically unable" to play CF in March, also?

 

Buxton's 6 for 6 on steals this year, and knowing this, that was probably 6 attempts too many.    He homered yesterday, but was on an 0 for 24 stretch before the game started.  I'm increasingly wondering if he should be playing at all.  It's telling that they don't seem to believe an IL stint and rest period of 10 days, a month, or whatever would make any difference.  If they did, they would've done it by now.  That would be the normal approach when you had a non-acute knee injury impacting a former Gold Glove centerfielder in the prime years of his career...as opposed to retiring him from his position in the field and trotting him out there several times a week to scuffle through his injury with middling results.

[farmerguychris]

2 hours ago, Twins_Fan_in_NJ said:

I'm still a believer in Buxton and without Buxton, there's no Correa. And yes, I'm a believer in Correa as well. Put them with a different manager, and you have two superstar talents for the next 5+ years. It is a luxury for a franchise like the Twins. Time for the Pohlads to do the right thing and move on from Rocco.

I'm also a believer in both Buxton and Correa - but how is it Rocco's fault that neither  Buxton or Correa are able to hit and in Buxton's case - stay/get healthy?  

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

2 hours ago, farmerguychris said:

I'm also a believer in both Buxton and Correa - but how is it Rocco's fault that neither  Buxton or Correa are able to hit and in Buxton's case - stay/get healthy?  

I don't blame Rocco for the inability to hit. That's entirely on Popkins and Hernandez - although, if Rocco is the final voice in their being hired and currently retained, then perhaps he does deserve the blame.

When I watch the Twins right now, I see a team that is totally dead and lifeless. Teams take on the personality of their manager and I think a fresh voice and one with a little more passion would go a long way to jumpstarting Correa and Buxton.

[chpettit19]

3 hours ago, StormJH1 said:

This situation only becomes more and more baffling to me.  It's pain to read articles like the one from Gleeman in The Athletic yesterday because the entire thing is a story about his medical condition, and yet the only description of what the problem is are vague references to his "knee".  He's played 56 games this year exclusively as a DH, and the results are obviously very mediocre - .209 BA and .741 OPS.  

 

The explanation given by Rocco and the front office thus far - or at least as I interpreted it - was that he could play in CF and obviously would be more valuable there, but since that would increase the risk of injury and his removal from the lineup altogether, the organization was electing not to play him in the field.  I disagreed with that approach because while CF could add additional ways he could get injured (running into a wall, slipping on the warning track and tearing up his knee, etc.), much of Buxton's acute injury history happened on the basepaths or in the batter's box.  But it was at least a sound explanation as to why they felt they could keep him healthy.

 

Rocco's comment now is that he literally cannot play in the field.  I interpret that as "this is a chronic condition, it is not getting better", and he will be on the IL within days if we start asking him to also patrol the outfield.  That's a different explanation, and one that's a lot more concerning for his long-term outlook.  It also doesn't line up with the other stories we've heard, including the one where Correa talked to him before the season and said "wouldn't it be great if you could just DH and hit 40 or 50 HR's".  That version of the story had Buxton eager to play in the field, but being talked out of it by players and FO people who had different ideas about how he could be most productive for the team.  So, was Buxton "physically unable" to play CF in March, also?

 

Buxton's 6 for 6 on steals this year, and knowing this, that was probably 6 attempts too many.    He homered yesterday, but was on an 0 for 24 stretch before the game started.  I'm increasingly wondering if he should be playing at all.  It's telling that they don't seem to believe an IL stint and rest period of 10 days, a month, or whatever would make any difference.  If they did, they would've done it by now.  That would be the normal approach when you had a non-acute knee injury impacting a former Gold Glove centerfielder in the prime years of his career...as opposed to retiring him from his position in the field and trotting him out there several times a week to scuffle through his injury with middling results.

Do you have some quotes of the Twins saying that he could play in CF, but they just won't because of the added risk of injuries from walls, etc.? It's entirely possible I missed them, or forgot them, but I don't remember seeing anything like that. It's always been that he wasn't capable of playing CF, but they hoped his knee would improve by the middle of May and they'd be able to start working him in. I don't remember a single quote from anyone that he was physically capable of it, but they just wouldn't put him out there.