Minnesota Twins: Byron Buxton situation could get ugly

The Minnesota Twins announced that they will not be calling up their center fielder for the final month, but the reasoning why could lead to a battle.

The 2018 season has been a rough one for the Minnesota Twins, and the same goes for their center fielder Byron Buxton. Between injuries and tough performance, Buxton was not able to replicate the dominant second half of 2017 that helped to propel the Twins to the AL Wild Card.

Buxton was struggling early in the 2017 season at the plate, but his dominant glove kept him in the lineup before the second half at the plate brought him to an overall season line of .253/.314/.413 with 16 home runs and 29 stolen bases (incredibly with just one caught stealing).

To open 2018, Buxton, along with many other Minnesota Twins stalwarts, struggled out of the gate, and then he got hurt. Buxton came back and played through a broken foot before it simply became too painful to continue and he was allowed to heal.

Finally healthy, Buxton has been looking good, hitting .365/.400/.596 with a home run as part of 9 extra base hits over a dozen games. On top of that, he looked every bit the part of the guy who won the Wilson Defensive Player of the Year Award. Yet, the announcement came out that the Minnesota Twins would not be calling up Buxton for September. The immediate underlying thought was that due to his limited time played in 2018, Buxton’s decision was likely due to service time, something that happens often, but teams simply cannot say, but then…

One of the first replies to Max’s tweet said it all: “Grievance filing in 3,2,1…”

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While these decisions have often been made because of service time, Collective Bargaining Agreement issues have typically made teams very hesitant to come out and directly say the words “service time” when discussing why a certain player is not at the major league level at that moment. This is incredibly blatant and direct in stating that the reasoning is directly related to service time in a public statement.

Levine later went on to state that the Twins will “make it up” to Buxton and his agents at a later date. What that means exactly is anyone’s guess, but we can only hope it means Buxton is renewed for 2019 at a significant rate as he would have been eligible for arbitration this year with enough playing time to serve as a full season. By keeping his playing time as it currently sits, his first season of arbitration will be after the 2019 season.

Needless to say, unless there’s a 7-figure renewal for 2019 or a multi-year extension for Buxton worked out over the winter by the Minnesota Twins, there’s a good chance the MLB Player’s Association will be getting involved, and this could be an ugly situation before it’s all done.