Byron Buxton and Twins agree to an extension

Yesterday afternoon as I was watching the Minnesota Vikings vs the San Francisco 49ers football game the news broke that the Minnesota Twins and Byron Buxton had reached agreement on a seven year extension worth about $100 million. I have to say that I was very surprised, I fully expected that this would not happen and that the Twins would be trading him to a team with deeper pockets that could afford to take such a gamble and not be hurt if Buxton got the big bucks but couldn’t stay healthy.

I like Buxton as a player but I have always been bothered by the fact that he could not stay healthy and for me a player sitting on the bench because he is not healthy enough play is worthless. It makes no difference if it is bad luck, bad karma, or whatever, if you can’t play you bring no value. There have always been players across all sports that spent more time in the training rooms than they did on the playing fields. It is what it is.

The dilemma with Buxton is that he was a number 1 pick (second overall) with amazing speed, ability and skills that were just coming to fruition and yet he has been put on the IL more often than any player in Twins history. You can certainly understand Buxton’s side and you can see the Twins side as well.

I can’t think of another player in this era that compares with Byron Buxton skills and health concerns. The Minnesota Twins found themselves between a rock and a hard spot. According to reports the Twins had previously offered seven years with $73 million but Buxton had turned that down and the Twins upped the ante to $80 million guaranteed and that too was shot down.

Twins fans on social media sites that I spend time seemed to be split about down the middle between “pay the man” and “trade him while you can still get something in return”. I admit I was in the trade him camp but that is the way I think, the glass is half empty. I don’t mind taking risks but they have to be well calculated risks that have a good chance of working out in my favor.

The agreement reached over the week-end according to various sources is as follows.

Buxton will get a $1MM signing bonus and a $9MM salary for 2022, and he’ll then earn $15MM every season from 2023-28.  An extra $500K in incentives is available if Buxton reaches various plate appearance thresholds (502, 533, 567, 600 and 625 PA).  Some major and “believed to be unprecedented” bonus money is also available to Buxton based on his finishes in MVP voting.  Buxton will earn $8MM if he wins MVP honors, $7MM for a second-place finish, $6MM for third, $5MM for fourth, $4MM for fifth, and $3MM if he finishes anywhere from sixth to tenth place in the voting. The extension also contains a full no-trade clause.

various sources

The agreement that was reached seems to be a very fair offer to both Buxton and the team. The Twins are willing to pay if Buxton can stay on the field and if he performs well enough to finish high in the MVP balloting. If he can do those things, he will be rewarded handsomely. I hope that Buxton can find a way to stay healthy, but history is not on his side. In sports some players seem to never get hurt while others seem to be hurt consistently. We will have to wait and see.

The high winds I felt this week-end must have been the sighs of relief from Jim Pohlad, Derek Falvey, Thad Levine and Rocco Baldelli to get this deal done in which they get to keep their man and yet minimize their risk. The last thing the Twins ballclub needed coming off a bad 2021 season in which many players underperformed was to have to trade Buxton for prospects and go into full rebuild mode again. Couple that with revenue down in 2020 and 2021 due to COIVD, a fanbase that could not watch the team on television and you had a recipe for disaster.

The Minnesota Twins are not out of the woods yet, they need to find three more starting pitchers, some bullpen help and hope that some of their young stars can play the way that the team expects. That is a lot of “wishing”, but I have seen stranger things happen in baseball. Maybe this will be a good year for the Minnesota Twins, with any luck at all, Tony Oliva and Jim Kaat will get their due reward and will be named to the MLB Hall of Fame on December 5th.

So, bottom line, thank you Byron Buxton, Jim Pohlad and the Minnesota Twins.