Concern for Byron Buxton?

Coming into the weekend, Byron Buxton has put up a tremendous season so far. He’s 36% above league average offensively according to wRC+ and has topped his career-high in home runs, well on his way to over 40 despite regular rest days. That being said, it's been a puzzling season for the Twins' star center fielder. While we can’t complain about his performance to date, it is worth wondering about Buxton moving forward.

The goal has always been to keep Byron Buxton healthy. Since 2019, he has been a well above league-average hitter whenever he’s been on the field. The Twins have accomplished that to an extent this season, as he’s avoided any IL trips thus far despite a few small injuries here and there leading to short absences. It’s widely understood that Buxton has been and will likely continue working through a chronic knee injury suffered in Boston back in April. Just something to keep in mind when looking at Buxton’s season.

As you can see, Buxton’s season consists of incredibly high highs and incredibly low lows. It’s possible that these brutal streaks coincide with flare-ups of his ailing knee, an issue that unfortunately doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon. One thing is for certain, however, after a shortened 2021 season in which he would have paced out as one of the best in baseball, he’s completely changed his approach.

After an unbelievably well-rounded line of .306/.358/.647 in 2021, Buxton has essentially failed to provide anything at all at the plate aside from power. His .218 batting average is his worst mark since 2018 and his .293 OBP is his worst since 2020, a season in which he walked only 1.5% of the time. While he’s having a career year in terms of walk rate (7.9%), his strikeout rate of 28.2% is his highest since 2018 as well. His batting average on balls in play of .210 is also a career-worst by a long shot. Why might that be?

After a shortened 2021 season in which Buxton was one of the best hitters in baseball, his flyball rate has absolutely exploded from 38.4 to 50.3%. To put it simply, in more than half of his batted ball events he’s hitting the ball in the air. 26.5% of those fly balls have found the seats, but the other 73.5% are easy outs. This increase in fly balls has come at the expense of his line drives, a batted ball type that typically rewards hitters league-wide with a near .700 batting average. It’s worth noting that Buxton’s quality of contact remains intact and has afforded him a .262 xBA and .358 xWOBA to this point, but it seems flyball-oriented hitters league wide have underperformed so far in 2022.

Regarding the short term, it’s worth considering how such a flawed plate approach could affect him moving forward. Since May 11, Buxton is slashing .192/.273/.479, still a 110 wRC+, but nowhere near the superstar levels we’ve seen him achieve in the past. The entirety of that measure comes strictly from slugging percentage, as the batting average and on-base ability are quite frankly terrible. Masking those numbers are several high-profile home runs in the clutch, a trait that many believe isn’t a predictive or repeatable skill. His overall batting line wouldn’t change if just a few of his homers hadn’t come in such clutch spots, but would the perception around him change at all?

In the long term, you have to desperately hope this change in approach isn’t an active choice that he intends to continue. We’ve seen that Buxton is still a valuable player while he’s selling out for fly balls, but becoming so one-dimension offensively cuts off any chance of being the MVP level player he’s capable of being. Furthermore, he’s able to take the mistakes he’s given and drive them over the fence regularly enough to mask his other deficiencies in 2022. What happens a few years down the road when that ability decreases with age?

There’s no action to take with Byron Buxton at this time, and it’s incredibly hard to be dissatisfied with his season thus far. Still, it’s worth pointing out that there has been a major change in his approach this season that has made him a decidedly worse offensive player. This “sell out for fly balls” approach has resulted in just three more big flies than he had in a near-identical amount of plate appearances in 2021, and every other offensive stat of his has suffered greatly as a result. Hitting home runs is fun, but he’s going to have to continue to do so in high-leverage spots to make any meaningful contributions on offense.

Perhaps it’s his knee injury, or perhaps it was an active choice to get the ball in the air as much as possible coming into the season. Either way, after several brutal stretches already this season followed by glimpses of what Byron Buxton can be, hopefully another change in approach is on the horizon. 

Perhaps it’s not fair to judge the way somebody achieves success. In Buxton’s case, however, it’s so hard to imagine why we’re seeing such a dramatic shift in approach coming off an MVP-caliber performance. Does this change in approach concern you? Are you happy to enjoy the big flies while they last and worry about the future when we get there? Let us know below!