With Six Games Left, Twins Need Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa Six Times Apiece

Everything seemed to be moving toward another strong finish and a second consecutive playoff appearance. Then, it happened. Twins ownership decided not only not to increase the payroll from 2023 to 2024, but to drastically reduce it. As a result, there's about $40 million worth of talent missing from this roster, and its absence has been felt down the stretch, about the way you'd feel it if someone wantonly harvested a kidney from you. 

Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton are star-caliber players, when they're available. Their previous numbers on the field, offensively and defensively, made them outstanding assets to the team. The best part of having such well-rounded, two-way contributors is that they are an integral part of the team's winning game plan, in a way more one-dimensional players can't match. 

The problem is that both of these irreplaceable talents require replacement too often. When Buxton signed a long-term contract with the Twins, his injuries were considered and priced into the deal. While his availability is limited, if you start from the premise that his deal reflected an understanding of that limitation on the part of the Twins, he's been worth his salary.

But matching market value isn’t everything when the numbers are bleak. Buxton has appeared at the plate 329 times, striking out 96 times and only getting 59 runs and 53 RBIs. The team around him hasn't created enough chances, and his injury trouble has translated into inconsistent offense. 

Correa, of course, was passed on by two would-be teams interested in long-term deals with him, after the Twins picked him up for one season. In a last-minute pivot, he came back to the club as a third option. Correa is one of the highest-paid players on the team and in the league, and should play as such, but because of pre-existing conditions either overlooked, missed, or downplayed by all parties involved, he has joined teammate Buxton on the bench for a majority of the season. That's after a 2023 in which he played most days, but poorly, and after stints on the injured list in 2022 (brief) and each years from 2017-19 (longer).

In his 80 appearances, Correa has 56 strikeouts, 52 runs, and 52 RBIs, his lowest numbers for any big-league season save the COVID-shortened 2020. In his last five games, Correa has one run, and that was in a loss against the Guardians on Sept. 16. He's looked good since returning to the lineup, but not good enough to carry an offense that looks helpless much of the time.

Outside of their bats, both players are experts in their defensive positions. The value gap between Buxton and Correa and their replacements in center field and at shortstop, respectively, is enormous. Baseball Prospectus has a Range Out Score for defenders, which provides a rare insight for fielding metrics: a rate stat to use for comparison of uneven samples. It's indexed to 0, with positive numbers representing the percentage of plays charged to that fielder they made above the average and negative ones representing the percentage of charged plays they didn't make, that an average fielder would.

The numbers say that not all of Buxton's brilliance in center came back after his gap year as a DH, but even so, he's better than the two most-used alternatives to him at that position. Correa, meanwhile, is far superior to the rest of the team's shortstop options, especially since his stint on the IL partially overlapped with that of Kyle Farmer, who rates as the next-best player to whom they can turn.

Players like Austin Martin, Willi Castro, Manuel Margot, Farmer, and Brooks Lee are underqualified to replace the stars, not because every team must have multiple above-average players at every defensive spot, but because this team knew they would be without Buxton and Correa for long stretches, and they still didn't reinforce the roster accordingly.

With both the players and management saying they are healthy enough to go, then, there is no reason to hold back. It is time to make up for lost time and put Correa and Buxton in on a daily basis during this absolutely crucial time. Even if the Twins miss the playoffs, the team and fans deserve to end this season with a fierce effort. It's clear that the only way this team can put up such a fight is to have their two highest-paid players in the lineup every day. 

Ownership signed off on two high-caliber, high-paid players who haven't been able to consistently anchor the lineup this year, leaving the continuity of the team lacking. While expecting the team to allow the “heavy lifting” to be done by two players, it is not acceptable to let those two players contribute to less than 60% of games throughout the season. The crime here is primarily in not having better supplemented the roster, but since that's where we are, the time has come to ride the stars hard and (if needed) put them away wet.

Paying these two players, knowing that they have durability issues, knowing they would have to build a team around them to be successful, and then slicing payroll and not allowing them to make up for their absences was a failure on the ownership. While their contracts aren’t a detriment to the team, the ownership failed to allow leadership to build a deep, competitive roster, and it hurt the team by having them on the bench more consistently than on the field.

Days off are more than acceptable; every player should have them. Buxton and Correa are indispensable to this team at this moment, though. The two players aren’t getting any younger, and there is little hope that the Pohlads will rediscover their checkbook and spend the missing $40 million on next year's team. Every team experiences injuries and setbacks, but at this point, the Twins have to play their two legitimate All-Stars as much as their luck and health will allow.