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Since returning from a two-month absence due to plantar fasciitis, Carlos Correa has only played in four games, one of them as a designated hitter. In those four games, though, he has looked comfortable. He’s coming off a three-hit game on Wednesday and a two-walk game on Thursday. In that tiny four-game sample, he’s running a 1.068 OPS. Byron Buxton has been back for five games himself, after missing a month due to a hip issue. Despite a rough game on Wednesday, he’s also looked like solid since his return, running an .833 OPS and contributing defensively. Just to be clear, these sample sizes are so small as to be meaningless.
What’s not meaningless is the fact that both players have, by all appearances, returned ready to play at something like full strength. Both in the field and at the plate, they look like themselves, rather than hobbled shadows of their former glory. Both players have seen their average bat speed drop by less than a single mile per hour since their return. In other words, they’re not taking weak cuts because they can’t put their whole body into a swing. They’re able to swing the bat hard and hit the ball hard. They haven’t shown any evidence of defensive limitations, either.
We’re talking about superstars, and there is no question that the Twins missed them dearly as they watched their chances--first of winning a division title, and now of securing the final Wild Card spot--dwindle. I don’t know what will happen over the next week, and if the team doesn't recover from its current collapse and misses out on the playoffs, these two absences will loom very large in any postmortem we write about their season. However, I honestly don’t think the Twins could have handled these situations any better than they did.
Keep in mind what Correa and Buxton contributed while playing through injuries in 2023. Correa put up a 95 wRC+ and 1.8 WAR while gutting it out through plantar fasciitis. Both numbers were the second-worst of his career (trailing only the short 2020 season), and they added up to a season that was a bit below average. Buxton didn’t play in the field all year, and in August, a hamstring strain finally knocked him out for the rest of the regular season. In all, he limped to a 97 wRC+ and 0.6 WAR. Once again, that’s a bit below average, but it’s devastatingly low for a designated hitter, and both numbers were the lowest Buxton had put up since 2018. We’ll never know what would have happened had the Twins encouraged Buxton and Correa to fight through their respective injuries and play every day this season, but it’s hard to imagine that they would have performed any better than they did in 2023, and they almost certainly would have put themselves in greater danger of injuring themselves further. Whether or not Correa and Buxton keep performing well, it just made sense to resist the temptation to rush them back. It gave them the best chance of getting and staying healthy in the long run, and it gave the team the best chance of seeing them play at a high level when it counts the most.
Before the season, the Twins said that they were hoping to get 100 games out of Buxton in center field. They won’t be far off that goal, as he’s now played in 87 and started 80 contests. Although Manuel Margot hasn’t put up the season they hoped, he’s a solid center fielder, and he was brought in for the express purpose of acting as, essentially, a second starting center fielder. The Twins built a deep team and relied on prospect depth to fill in the gaps, and now, their two biggest stars have returned and hit the ground running in time for the stretch run. Willi Castro has emerged as a star in his own right, and he’s put up excellent defensive numbers while filling in at shortstop. We may not love the idea of shifting Royce Lewis over to second base in order to make room for José Miranda at third, but it’s important to keep in mind that (unpalatable though it may be), the idea is an answer to the best possible question a team can have: How do we make room in our lineup for all these great hitters?
Letting Correa and Buxton (not to mention Lewis) get fully healthy didn’t just allow the Twins to get their best players back when it mattered the most; it also allowed them to keep their role players and bench players engaged and ready to play. Christian Vázquez has looked like a completely different hitter during the second half, and Kyle Farmer has exploded, running a 230 wRC+ since Aug. 26. All of a sudden, this lineup doesn’t have any holes, and because even the bench players have been getting steady playing time, there aren’t many holes there, either. By being unafraid to use fill-ins, the Twins have assembled an all-killer, no-filler lineup.
Just two Twins, Castro and Carlos Santana, will qualify for a batting title this season. But the team has nine different players – and if you’re keeping score at home, that’s how many you get to put in your lineup – who have run a wRC+ above 110 while making at least 240 plate appearances. That’s the most in baseball. The only other teams with seven such players are the Dodgers, Red Sox, and Mets. Minnesota may not have Aaron Judge and Juan Soto, but you could argue that there isn’t a lineup in baseball that’s tougher from top to bottom. None of this matters if the Twins end up missing the playoffs, but if they don't, they'll be glad that their stars are as close to 100% as they can get them.
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