In 2017, former top prospect Byron Buxton completed his third season in MLB. At age 23, the freakishly athletic young centerfielder received down-ballot MVP votes for his immaculate centerfield defense. He took home some hardware that season, winning not only a Gold Glove but a Platinum Glove for his defensive excellence. In his first full season in the bigs, he was phenomenal.
It would also be his last full season in the bigs.
Since 2017, Buxton has had injury after injury, setback after setback. As a result, he has since not played more than 92 games in a season, and while brilliant on a per-game basis, he has never been a qualified hitter since that one full season back in 2017. This year, entering his age 30 season, Buxton was coming off his worst season in the majors since a stunted 2018. Recovering from a knee injury, Buxton was relegated to DH duty in 2023, and he struggled to make consistent contact. Buck could still slug, evidenced by his .230 ISO, but his .731 OPS in 2023 was hardly a showstopper, especially given that he was simply a DH during that time, not stepping foot in the outfield once.
His expectations were lowered entering this season, and those low expectations were seemingly accurate in his first few months of the year. Then Buxton got hot. Red hot.
After a troublesome stretch lasting over a season and a half, the Buck Truck is back and going full steam ahead, leading the Twins in their chase to the AL Central title.
A Tale of Two Seasons
With this header, I don’t mean “seasons” as MLB seasons. I mean literal seasons of the year – because Buxton has been a completely different hitter since the Summer Solstice on the afternoon of June 20th. Seemingly as soon as Spring turned to Summer, Buxton re-emerged to become the slug-happy phenom we’ve known for the past few years:
Buxton has doubled his slugging and increased his AVG by over 110 points. You may think that Buxton’s increase is due to improved swing decisions, but Buxton has largely been the same type of hitter as he was during his much tamer Spring:
So what’s causing this dramatic increase in performance? Two things: 1) He’s being far more aggressive at the plate
2) He’s mashing when he swings:
Buxton’s hitter profile is relatively strange for a slugger. A slugger with a high ISO is typically expected to run a high walk rate to compensate for a usually elevated K%, but Buxton has actually dropped his walk rate from 10.1% last season to just 5% this year.
Is this alarming? Sort of. But passiveness at the plate isn’t exactly Buxton’s thing.
See, hitters have many different ways to achieve success. Some hitters are excellent at making contact and having strong plate discipline; others lack those skills but make up for it with prodigious power. Ideally, a hitter would be like Juan Soto. Let’s take a look at the newly introduced Process+ stat, courtesy of my good friend Kyle Bland, to explain what I mean:
Soto makes a lot of contact, crushes the ball when he swings, and has the best plate discipline in the majors. He’s basically everything you could want in a hitter – but contrast this with another elite hitter in Rafael Devers:
Devers makes relatively league-average decisions, and his contact tool isn’t quite as sharp. Yet Devers and his 154 WRC+ is able to be one of the premier hitters in baseball due to his tremendous power when he does make contact. He’s swing-happy, but because of how good he is when he gets a hold of one, Devers can be an offensive force.
Which brings us back to Buxton. I sort of gave it away earlier, but what does Buxton’s Process+ look like?
As mentioned earlier, Buxton’s swing decisions have largely been unchanged since the start of the year (around league average, if not below), and while his contact tool has been better, that alone doesn’t account for such a dramatic difference. Buxton’s Process+ chart clearly shows how transformative Buxton’s recent power surge has been to his overall production. Let’s look into that.
Barreled Up Buck
I’ve sort of spoiled how Buxton has become the super slugger that he’s been recently, but there are some other things at play when we take a look under the hood. Throughout Byron’s 2024, there are plenty of contributing factors to Buxton’s recent surge – minor improvements that make a significant difference:
These are all nice and solid improvements. Buxton has been faring better in counts, not allowing himself to be put in as many precarious positions. His CSW% has also gone down – largely due to overall swing aggression resulting in fewer called strikes, while not dramatically increasing whiffs. Good!
He’s also seen more middle-middle pitches as well as more fastballs, both of which have a much higher chance for the batter to do serious damage. Good!
He’s been more aggressive, and it seems to be working for him in terms of managing the count. But these improvements alone do not account for a 225 WRC+ in the Summer. So… what happens when Buxton gets a hold of one?
OH.
Over this stretch, Buxton has had the second-lowest GB% in baseball (just behind Wilyer Abreu) and has coupled that with the third-highest barrel rate, just behind Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani. As a result, only Juan Soto has a higher xwOBA in Summer.
Take a look at that batted ball distribution too. Not only has Buxton slashed his ground ball rate and ticked up his fly ball rate, but he’s also halved his pop-up rate. Pop-ups are one of the very worst outcomes of a plate appearance. They’re effectively a guaranteed out and aren’t even a productive one at that. Buxton has – incredibly – increased his aggressiveness tremendously while getting better batted ball data, no matter how you look at it.
Upgraded Engine
So what has caused this power surge? We’ve looked at the results and the mental changes to be more aggressive with his swing, but let’s go really under the hood and examine Buxton’s mechanics. Here are two home runs, first from Spring and then from Summer. Take a close look at Buxton’s swing:
It seems like Buxton has made a tweak to his swing that has enabled him to tap into his power. He used to kick back his right foot during his swing, which enabled him to get into a running stance faster but that also meant his hips were more constricted. In the second clip from late June, Buxton eliminated this movement in his right foot, instead keeping his stance more open, allowing him to open his hips up sooner. Doing so allows him to get his bat across the plate sooner – which is important – because at 8.1 ft, Buxton has one of the longest swings in baseball, and not being able to turn on a pitch with that kind of swing length would spell disaster.
These two pitches are both mid-90s fastballs in the upper middle of the plate – very similar. The game situations are different, but as far as comparing swings go, these two look very different – and Buxton has adopted this second swing as Spring has turned to Summer.
One last thing – Buxton spent all of last year dealing with issues on his right knee – the same knee that he seemed tentative to put pressure on in that clip of his swing from April. The new swing uses his back leg more for greater stability, and this change – in addition to Buxton reclaiming playing CF – could ease the minds of fantasy owners that his knee really does feel better.
Truck Stop
As of writing, Byron Buxton has hit the 10-day Injured List. Witty injury joke here. It’s unfortunate timing, but also likely a measure of extraordinary precaution, as the Twins have been sure to limit the risk of severe injury as they are looking to make the postseason for the second consecutive season.
Buxton has a chance to play 100 games for the Twins this year, which for someone with as lengthy an injury history as Buxton, is a great sign. This – coupled with once again being excellent on a rate basis both offensively and defensively after a dismal 2023 – should give confidence to dynasty owners going forward. Regardless, as long as the Buck Truck can stay on the road, it is going full steam ahead.