Byron Buxton’s Weird Season

It’s hard to really break up a 60-game season into pieces since the whole is a relatively small sample on its own. That said, Byron Buxton seemed to be getting off to his normal slow start with a .221/.225/.456 line through 21 games (a small sample, but 35% of this year’s season) and that was only buoyed by a 3-game homer streak in games 9 through 11 (.401 OPS before that). Again, that is a relatively small number of plate appearances (71), but it was fitting Buxton’s pattern so I know I had some confirmation bias around that time like “here we go again!”.

He then suffered a left shoulder injury (inflammation) that sent him to the IL for the fourth straight season and it was the same shoulder that he hurt in 2019 so the “here we go again” vibes kicked into overdrive at that point. After missing 11 games, he returned on September 1st and he’s been on fire since then with a .340/.353/.800 line with 7 HR, 13 RBI, and 8 R in 51 PA including hits in 12 of his 13 starts (there are two defensive replacement appearances in which he has 1 PA and went 0-for-1). The power surge is the most impressive part of the run with nine of his 17 hits going for extra bases highlighted the seven dingers.

The production has come with a wild profile, though. Buxton is smacking the hell out of the ball with surges in Hard-Hit Rate (+7 points to a career-best 46%) and Barrel Rate (+6 points to a career-best 14%) that sit 83rd and 89th percentile, respectively. His profile lends credence to the idea that using overall Exit Velocity is flawed as he’s up just 0.7 mph to 90.8 yet the deeper look shows the obvious gains. Here’s where things start to get wild. He has a 1.6% BB rate against a 24% K rate while his GB/LD/FB split is 36%/13%/51%.

His BB rate is the worst in baseball (min. 100 PA) while only five players have a lower line drive rate (including Hunter Renfroe’s league-worst 8%… yikes). He also has a 52% O-Swing rate, 2nd-highest in the league, but just a 57% O-Contact rate which is well below the 80% mark that Hanser Alberto – the league leader in O-Swing at 54% – has this year. Buxton also has a 71% first-pitch strike rate that sits 3rd in the league. That’s not inherently bad as he’s obviously fighting through it en route to a 128 wRC+ and the two guys ahead of him have even better wRC+ totals (Bo Bichette 73% FPS%, 133 wRC+; Lourdes Gurriel Jr. 71%, 131), but it seems like something that could catch up to him in a standard six-month season.

Oh, and for fun he also has a heavy reverse platoon split with an .896 OPS against righties and .659 against lefties (albeit in just 24 PA).

I just don’t know what to make of this amalgam of metrics.

I worry that this surge will push his price to level that makes him a tough buy. In the final stretch of the summer Main Events, he was sitting at pick-164 on average with a high of 133 and low of 183. I think he beats that mark for 2021, especially if he has a strong playoff for the Twins, too. This power explosion follows a strong .251 ISO last year during which he clubbed 10 HR in 295 PA and he also brings speed to the table.

Even though he’s just 1-for-2 in SBs, his sprint speed remains top of the scale sitting 99th percentile at 29.9 ft/sec. In fact, he’s been 99th-100th percentile throughout his entire career, and this is actually the first time he’s been below 30 ft/sec (though he’s obviously right at the mark when you round it). As he enters his age-27 season next year, there are still viable dreams of a 30 HR/20 SB season if he can stay healthy.

But that last part remains a substantial if.

His all-out style of premium defense in centerfield has fueled eight trips to the IL with injuries to his thumb, groin, head, toe, wrist, and shoulder. He has eclipsed 92 games just once (140 in 2017) so while he is averaging 19 HR and 23 SB per 162 games and has the skills to deliver something even better with a full 600+ PA, it’s really difficult to envision him reaching that threshold and even harder to pay for it. He will likely make it outside the Top 100, but if he stays healthy the rest of the year, he’ll be in heavy consideration once the draft reaches triple digit picks.

I’ll start considering him in the 125-140 range. That’s where the likes of Andrew Benintendi, Tommy Edman, Cavan Biggio, Joey Gallo, and Michael Conforto went during the Sprint Main Event drafts among outfielders and they were hardly flawless coming into the season.

Where are you considering Buxton for 2021? Will you push him inside the Top 100?