Byron Buxton Could Be Activated in the “Next Few Days”

[HarmonK03]

3 minutes ago, HarmonK03 said:

They have used Jeffers as a pinch hitter twice since he came off the IL in early July.  And both times they moved Caratini to 1B, negating the need for a third catcher.  

An additional point, in late May there were only 5 teams that carried 3 catchers, it is hard to do with only 13 position players.  And the chances that you need an emergency catcher are very small, that is why most teams take the risk and do not carry three catchers.

[LA Vikes Fan]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Plus Keaschall in the OF.

If the expectation was for Culpepper to immediately contribute in his first 30 plate appearances they should have never promoted him in the first place. Sending players up and down based on small sample size results is stupid and would show a complete lack of ability to assess talent by the front office.

Agreed. I think Culpepper is the primary starting SS for the rest of the season if he shows anything at the plate. We need to know if he can be the SS next year. This won't be his only shot if he fails, but this is his best shot to grab that position before Marek Houston forces things. I really hope he takes advantage. 

[RpR]

58 minutes ago, bean5302 said:

Why don't we just DFA and release Buxton so we can clear some space for Jenkins?

LOL, yeah, maybe he will have a hot bat like Culpepper has!

[jaimedude]

I would cut Jackson, just my preference to not have 3 catchers. That and he barely plays. 

[howeda7]

7 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Do you want to bench Larnach, Keaschall or Bell for Jenkins? Those are three of their best hitters.

Buxton and Jenkins for Roden and Jackson.

[nicksaviking]

7 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Do you want to bench Larnach, Keaschall or Bell for Jenkins? Those are three of their best hitters.

Caratini, Bell then if needed Larnach. Why has Caratini gotten three of the last five starts at 1B anyway?

Getting Jenkins up and involved in exciting late season games seems infinitely more important than getting ABs to three guys who probably shouldn't be here next year.

I'd add Clemens to the list but I'm afraid of those pitchforks.

[DJL44]

21 minutes ago, howeda7 said:

Buxton and Jenkins for Roden and Jackson.

So you want to play Jenkins as often as they play Jackson?

[howeda7]

28 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

So you want to play Jenkins as often as they play Jackson?

No. I want him to play CF every day until Buxton is back, LF against RH once Buxton is back and CF again when Buxton gets re-injured. Larnach/Bell can platoon the DH spot for however long Buxton is in the line-up.

[DJL44]

34 minutes ago, howeda7 said:

No. I want him to play CF every day until Buxton is back, LF against RH once Buxton is back and CF again when Buxton gets re-injured. Larnach/Bell can platoon the DH spot for however long Buxton is in the line-up.

If you want him for his defense, it makes a lot more sense to play him in RF. 

It is a big risk to take one of their top bats out of the lineup to add a rookie. Benching Josh Bell when he has a 950 OPS over the past two weeks is very different than benching Ryan Kreidler when he’s barely hitting .100.

[Whammy]

6 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

I would option Austin Martin for Walker Jenkins. Martin plays every day and IMO should not be a part of future competitive Twins teams. 

I think this is a recency bias of us facing lefty SP in 3 of the last 4. 

Martin starts against lefties. We've just faced a lot of lefties in the last week+. He only got 43 PA in July (and had a .422 OBP by the way)

I believe we face 1 lefty in the next 5. I expect Martin to start that game and none of the others. 

[DJL44]

6 minutes ago, Whammy said:

I think this is a recency bias of us facing lefty SP in 3 of the last 4. 

Martin starts against lefties. We've just faced a lot of lefties in the last week+. He only got 43 PA in July (and had a .422 OBP by the way)

I believe we face 1 lefty in the next 5. I expect Martin to start that game and none of the others. 

Another reason why it was a bad time for Jenkins to debut last week.

[HarmonK03]

19 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Another reason why it was a bad time for Jenkins to debut last week.

If he is up here, he should not be platooned.  Maybe a tougher pitcher like Skubal you sit for but I would absolutely play him against Cameron.

[ashbury]

8 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

Larnach has not been good for several weeks now. I'd have no issue starting Jenkins over him. 

His OPS was .844 as recently as July 22.  Since then he's OPSed .540 but that's only 13 games, not "several weeks", and he's had a couple of HR in that span with reasonable 20% SO rate, so the only thing going wrong for him is a BABIP of .148.  Seems like a reasonable candidate to start "being good" at the plate without warning.

[Whammy]

15 hours ago, HarmonK03 said:

If he is up here, he should not be platooned.  Maybe a tougher pitcher like Skubal you sit for but I would absolutely play him against Cameron.

Our disconnect here is that you are treating the Jenkins conversation as "he should have been here a couple weeks ago" and I'm treating the Jenkins callup as an ever-changing discussion.

It didn't make any sense to call up Jenkins when Culpepper was called up because over the next 4 games we faced 3 lefty SP and The Miz. That's a PERFECT time to call up Culpepper, but basically the worst possible time to call up Jenkins. So they didn't.

If Jenkins had already been in the majors for a few weeks and we hit that yes stretch, then yes, I'd want him playing probably 3 of those 4 games, but in the moment last Thursday, it didn't make any sense to call him up.

How about now? Yeah. Call up him. Absolutely. He's just as ready as he was before. He seems Healthy. And 3 of the next 4 SP we face are righties. 

[Possumlad]

From the Twins website today: 

OF Byron Buxton
Injury: Right hip strain
IL date: July 29
Expected return: Mid-August
Status: Expected to be activated any day, and the Aug. 13 Field of Dreams game is at least in play. (Last updated: Aug. 12) More >>

[Vanimal46]

On 8/11/2026 at 6:43 PM, ashbury said:

His OPS was .844 as recently as July 22.  Since then he's OPSed .540 but that's only 13 games, not "several weeks", and he's had a couple of HR in that span with reasonable 20% SO rate, so the only thing going wrong for him is a BABIP of .148.  Seems like a reasonable candidate to start "being good" at the plate without warning.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=larnatr01&year=2026&t=b#all_total

.639 OPS in the last 28 days.

[ashbury]

11 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/split.fcgi?id=larnatr01&year=2026&t=b#all_total

.639 OPS in the last 28 days.

He's been even worse in the more recent stretch I quoted.  Soon, he'll be down to .000.  

[Vanimal46]

Just now, ashbury said:

He's been even worse in the more recent stretch I quoted.  Soon, he'll be down to .000.  

? He had a hit today so if this was an attempt at the scope of where to begin Larnach's split, the joke fell flat.

[ashbury]

25 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

? He had a hit today so if this was an attempt at the scope of where to begin Larnach's split, the joke fell flat.

The joke, feeble as it was, concerned the difficulties of extrapolation in general.  But forget extrapolation which isn't even relevant (that was part of the joke - insert the Nathan Fillion gif if it helps).  If you wanted a serious response, it's this:

If

• the last 28 days is games of 7-17 (All-Star game cut into this) through 8-11 (because today's game isn't on b-r.com yet) which have an OPS of .639 as you quoted, and
• if the span I quoted of 7-23 through 8-9 (because I was posting yesterday) was .540, then
• that means the games at the beginning of your range to before the beginning of mine, namely 7-17 through 7-22 had an OPS of 1.069.  (I'm using the features of b-r.com's Game Logs feature to select ranges of interest.

He's had bad enough results lately that even the few good games right after ASG aren't enough to raise the total averages.  But to say he's been "not good" and then include games at the beginning of the range when he still was good, doesn't give a very fair picture.

Finally, during the 28-day stretch of .639 OPS performance, good and bad games commingled, his BABIP has been .205.  It's very likely that he's the same Trevor Larnach as when his BABIP was well above .300 earlier this season and people were remarking about what a breakthrough year he's having.

Same guy the entire time, if you ask me.

[Vanimal46]

5 minutes ago, ashbury said:

He's had bad enough results lately that even the few good games right after ASG aren't enough to raise the total averages.  But to say he's been "not good" and then include games at the beginning of the range when he still was good, doesn't give a very fair picture.

Maybe your concern is thinking I'm intentionally mischaracterizing him? I looked at Baseball Reference splits and saw a .639 OPS over the last 28 days and said that isn't good. Do you disagree? I guess I could have looked at the last 7 and 14 days and quoted that too which is worse. 

[ashbury]

Just now, Vanimal46 said:

Maybe your concern is thinking I'm intentionally mischaracterizing him? I looked at Baseball Reference splits and a .639 OPS over the last 28 days and said that isn't good. Do you disagree?

I disagree if your implication is that he's been "not good" the entire 28 days.  One foot in a bucket of comfortably warm water, one foot in a bucket of dry ice, and on average there's frostbite on both feet if you don't drill down in the data just a little bit.

[Vanimal46]

1 minute ago, ashbury said:

I disagree if your implication is that he's been "not good" the entire 28 days.  One foot in a bucket of comfortably warm water, one foot in a bucket of dry ice, and on average there's frostbite on both feet if you don't drill down in the data just a little bit.

We can agree to disagree then. 

[ashbury]

Just now, Vanimal46 said:

We can agree to disagree then. 

You asked me what I disagreed with, and I told you.  Return the favor, my friend.

BTW I didn't address your first sentence, about intentionally mischaracterizing.  I don't have reason to think that, when it's simpler to assume sloppiness in handling averages.  And in overlooking the effect on small samples when batted balls fall in safely, or fail to do so, for a period of time.

[ashbury]

"The purpose of computation is insight, not numbers.”  Richard Hamming, 1962.

I was introduced to this quote from an early giant of computing at some point in my young career (no, I don't go back quite as far as Hamming).  That principle guides a good portion of what I try to do here.  Quoting a number, or a bunch of them, isn't intended to close a discussion, but to try to suggest how to look for something beneath the surface.  Take that for what it's worth, because disagreement about that certainly would be where to "agree to disagree."

Finally, please take the following in the playful spirit it's intended:

[dxpavelka]

On 8/11/2026 at 7:13 AM, DJL44 said:

Do you want to bench Larnach, Keaschall or Bell for Jenkins? Those are three of their best hitters.

You're right. We're ALMOST a game under .500 and those three guys are 3rd, 7th and 9th on the team in OPS and 6th, 8th and 9th in WAR.  I see no reason to try to be better.  

[dxpavelka]

On 8/11/2026 at 7:32 AM, IndianaTwin said:

So DFA Caratini and pay him $7M not to catch next season AND enter the offseason with only Jackson on the roster? Don’t think that’s going to happen. 

Do you REALLY think Jeffers won't be here come April?

[DJL44]

7 hours ago, dxpavelka said:

Do you REALLY think Jeffers won't be here come April?

Jeffers is gone. The Twins will take the draft pick. 

[MikeNC]

The Rodent finally hit a fastball!  Two of them in fact for 2 doubles, clocked at 94 and 97.  This is new.  I was totally ready to ditch the guy.  Maybe they have fixed him and he deserves a longer look.  The obvious choice would be to send down a 3rd catcher (Jackson) who is not playing - but possibly Jeffers isn't 100% yet and they want to keep him readily available.  Sept. 1 is not far away, we'll surely see Walter Jenkins then.