Byron Buxton Update: Minnesota Twins, Fantasy Baseball Owners Watching Buxton Closely
This Byron Buxton update shows how the Minnesota Twins prospect is doing in Triple-A Rochester. The Twins had Buxton begin the 2016 MLB season as part of the big club coming out of Spring Training, but early struggles led to a quick demotion to Rochester. In 18 games with Rochester, Buxton may be close to earning another promotion from the Twins. That would be great news to fantasy baseball owners who held on to Buxton despite his early struggles this year.
Playing 17 games for the Minnesota Twins in April, Byron Buxton struggled quite a bit at the plate, showing that he might have a hole in his swing. Buxton was just 7-for-45 in his at-bats, which worked out to a 0.156 batting average. He also had 24 strikeouts in just those 17 games, a rate that the team wasn’t pleased to see from its top prospect. Sporting a 0.497 OPS, Buxton was demoted to Rochester to work on his approach at the plate. Since then, he has continued to play well against the lesser competition.
Over his first 18 games with Rochester, it appears that Buxton may be comfortable at the plate again. He is 24-for-76 (0.316 average), with nine extra-base hits, eight RBIs, and 16 runs scored. Buxton is working with an OPS of 0.900, which might indicate his time at Triple-A won’t last much longer. What might start to worry the Minnesota Twins and fantasy baseball owners, though, is that he is still struggling with the strikeouts. He has 18 over those 18 minor league games.
At just 22-years-old, Buxton has a lot of baseball left to play in his MLB career, so the Twins aren’t in a rush to get him back to Target Field. A quick look at the updated MLB standings shows how badly the team could use a bump on offense. The Twins have slipped to just 8-25 in the 2016 MLB season, which is now tied with the Atlanta Braves for the worst record in all of baseball. That’s not where the team wanted to be at this point of the season, but there is still a lot of time to recover.
This latest Byron Buxton update does show that he may have done all he can to prove himself at the Triple-A level. Buxton continues to do well against minor league pitching, and the Minnesota Twins may simply be at a point where he just needs to play every day for the major league team. He struggled a bit in the second half of 2015 but again showed in Spring Training 2016 that he was ready for a full-time gig with the Twins.
Buxton was called up in the second half of the 2015 MLB season, seeing action in 46 games for the Twins down the stretch. He was 27-for-129 at the plate, which was only good enough for a 0.209 batting average. He received the promotion after batting 0.400 over 13 games with Triple-A Rochester. What he has done at the plate for the Twins since that point has led to many MLB analysts feeling he got bumped up too quickly. With his arbitration clock already ticking, there is no turning back for the Twins now.
It is clear that Buxton is still extremely talented and that it may just take more Major League at-bats before everything finally clicks for him. Two of Buxton’s biggest assets are defense and speed, which the Minnesota Twins could benefit from with another promotion. The question now is whether Buxton should continue to showcase his talent for Triple-A Rochester or whether it is time for the Twins to really give him a full opportunity. Fantasy baseball fans should expect that the next Byron Buxton update will be a promotion and that it’s time to pick him up again.
[Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images]
