The Twins Made a Mistake Waiting on Byron Buxton’s Hip Surgery

[Kummel]

I hope Buxton's recovery goes well.  We don't know how long it will impact him or how he will do when he returns.  Considering that he is rarely able to play late in the season, delaying his return could mean he is more likely to be healthy and available to play in the second half.  Of course it would be better to play an entire year, but this way he could be a factor late in a season.  And Jenkins can develop as next CF.  

 

[djvang]

3 minutes ago, Cris E said:

What were Tristan Grey's numbers? 

Better than Buxton's are when he's on the IL.

[Fatbat]

We should actually be surprised that he already had surgery. Secondly, who wants buxton playing in march and April anyhow? He would just get hurt and not be available July-October when we really need him on the active roster. Let the kids play next spring and bring in an unbroken Buxton in June to heat up and let it rip in late summer!!! Ya’ll are short sighted.

[AKTwinsFan]

That's why Tatum and DiVencenzo both had their surgeries ASAP, we'll see if DDV will be back in time to help the Wolves this year. But if he waited till after the playoffs he'd have missed the whole year probably. 

[D.C Twins]

Twins gonna do Twins things... 

[Twins GFP]

2 hours ago, old nurse said:

The criticizing with minimal knowledge of complex situations is what people do. 

Close the comments, we have a winner!

[LastOnePicked]

30 minutes ago, Kummel said:

Considering that he is rarely able to play late in the season, delaying his return could mean he is more likely to be healthy and available to play in the second half. 

I'm seeing this argument a lot. I think people are forgetting that a playoff run can be derailed by a bad April. You want banked wins to build on, not an early hole to dig out of.

And if the Twins are struggling, Buxton might feel additional pressure to push himself in his return. He would have missed Spring Training, and re-injury could be even more likely.

This only works if a work stoppage lasts about as long as his recovery. Maybe the Twins just assumed that the season will start in June or July.

[Kummel]

Yes, the first half is important.  And as we can see from three years of collapses, the latter half is as well.  The problem for Twins and their fans is that Buxton is not a full season player.  So let Jenkins develop in CF and add Buxton later in season, I think it's a decent response to reality.

[Patzky]

3 hours ago, HarmanWithAnA said:

I'd rather have peak Buxton for the last 107ish games of the season than the first.  The mistake might have been not waiting till June every season to start playing him even when he was healthy.

Exactly. 

[David Maro]

The whole thing is a mess because of Buxton. With his injury history the team carried Outman to cover CF if Buxton went down. Now that is on the FO because Outman is far from what he was in LA but had no options. Then the medical staff didn't help the matter at AS break telling him he wouldn't do anymore damage if he could play though the pain. I think everyone knows that the older you are the longer it takes to come back from injury and or surgery. And another thing that seems to happen is when you favor a injury you have another. To be realistic he should have had the surgery around the AS break and it maybe would have been less complicated,but now that's all hindsight. Anyone who believes that he has value to this team at this point of his career is fooling themselves. 

[Nashvilletwin]

Everyone, don’t worry.

The question is not if Buxton/the Twins waited to long to have his surgery - they didn’t, because it’s highly unlikely there is any baseball before June next season anyway.

The actual question is what role is he going to play.  Ideally, he’s our primary DH, playing in the outfield no more than twice a week, and certainly not taking innings and ABs away from Keaschall, Jenkins and ERod.  If he still wants to be an everyday outfielder, we give him the option to do that somewhere else.  Easy peasy.

[MeleMouth]

2 hours ago, Cris E said:

Oh good lord. Hyperbole much?

The man is only making $15m and had hit 25 HR with a .930 OPS in mid-JUNE.  Yeah, he sucks. 

That would be awesome if the season ended in mid-JUNE, but it didn't.

After mid-JUNE, he performed terribly and had a surgery that will require extended rehab and may impact his ongoing performance, which is already declining because of aging. Nobody will give much for that kind of asset until they see if he can sustain decent performance.

In 2028, he'll be 34 and in the last year of his contract. Maybe they can get something for him then from a team who thinks he could be an asset in contending. Of course, ideally the Twins have a somewhat competitive team in 2028 and Buxton could be a fourth outfielder for it.

[MeleMouth]

1 hour ago, HarmonK03 said:

The team isn't going to force a trade if he wants to be here.  Regardless of how frustrated we are with the amount of games missed by Buxton, he has produced when in the lineup and has earned this right both contractually and from a business sense to be deferred to on this decision.

That's fine, but a typical 75-win team trades assets like Buxton. The Twins, however, not only don't trade him if he doesn't want to be traded nor put him on the IL and call up someone able-bodied when he's injured, they don't even take him out of the lineup if he wants to play when he's injured.

[Western SD Fan]

20 minutes ago, MeleMouth said:

That's fine, but a typical 75-win team trades assets like Buxton. The Twins, however, not only don't trade him if he doesn't want to be traded nor put him on the IL and call up someone able-bodied when he's injured, they don't even take him out of the lineup if he wants to play when he's injured.

Everyone that wants to just trade Buxton away keeps forgetting that he had a full no-trade clause for 2026.  Just because you stamp your feet and whine doesn't make the full no-trade clause go away.  Even if Buxton would have agreed to a trade, you're basically trading with one team, your trade value drops significantly, likely to the point that Buxton is more valuable on your team than trading him.  Now in 2027, he has a limited no-trade clause that allows him to be traded to five teams.  I don't know what that list is, but I'm reasonably assume the Pirates aren't on there.

If you're in marketing for the Twins, how do you spin that you attempted to strong-arm your most recognizable player in on the team into breaking his NTC in what would appear to be a salary dump and giving up on the season.  Much of the fanbase is already apathetic, at best, towards the Twins.  You're trying to rebuild trust in the organization, not burn it down.

[PuckettPond]

There will be more Big Foot, Elvis & Unicorn sightings than Buxton playing Center field. Fans must stop listening to Jim Jones & not drink the Kool Aid. People with hip injuries use walkers not baseball bats. Baseball lost their greatest player Bo Jackson to a hip injury.

[Parfigliano]

4 hours ago, Mike h said:

I’ve had several surgeries including a back surgery that was supposed to take 4 hours but ended up taking almost 7. More to the point, once it was determined that surgery was necessary I still had to fit in to the doctors schedule and O.R. availability, etc.  And Buxton may have needed some time to digest the reality and rethink alternatives.  That would seem normal and his right. The wait could have been on him, not the Twins.  If so, that’s ok.  When it comes to your health you have to look out for number one.

Only Buxton can decide to have or not have surgery.  TC can suggest and push for him to get surgery but Buxton has final authority on the decision.