Byron Buxton 2021 Year-in-Review

Flashback to May 7, 2021. Major League Baseball had five full weeks in the books, and no player was looking like a better late-round draft pick than Twins centerfielder Byron Buxton. The former highly-touted prospect had registered 98 plate appearances, hitting for a .370 batting average while swatting nine homers to tie for second in the league while posting an uber-elite 21.7% barrel rate.

The fantasy managers that had faded him in drafts, citing injury concerns, were kicking themselves. That day, however, they were proven right. Buxton would leave the game after landing on first base awkwardly, and he would go on to miss 44 days with a hip strain. A multi-week absence was tragic for fantasy managers, but not the end of the world given how late they drafted Buxton and how much production he had already contributed for their team. Buxton returned on June 19th and racked up four hits with another homer in his first three games returning. In that third game, however, disaster struck again. Buxton was hit in the hand by a pitch which sent him back to the IL for another 67 days. The freak injury was really a slap in the face to managers who had benefited so much from Buxton's presence on their team.

This year-in-review post could probably be summarized in just a couple of sentences. I could just tell you that Buxton is an elite talent who will continue to be a top-20ish player while on the field, but there is just no way you can count on him to play a full season. But that would be lame, so let's do more than that!

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Absurd Upside

Buxton will not show up on many leaderboards this offseason, because most leaderboards are filtered down to only qualified hitters. The 254 plate appearances Buxton posted in 2021 isn't a qualifying number. However, if we look at all hitters with 250+ PA's, Buxton shows up like this:

Buxton is certainly one of the most talented hitters in the league, that much must be acknowledged. It is fair to say, however, that those numbers would not have sustained had he pushed towards 400 plate appearances, but there's little questioning that he would have been a top twenty hitter for fantasy purposes had he stayed on the field.

One thing that a lot of fantasy analysts do to try to make a guy seem appealing is the extrapolation game. When they take stats a player has posted over a short time frame and show what paces those numbers put a guy on over a full-season sample. This is pretty murky territory, and there are tons of reasons to not do it - but in Buxton's case, it's fun to do - so I'm going to do it. Just don't take this as a prediction for 2022.

Since 2019, Buxton has posted this line: 684 PA, 176 H, 42 HR, 117 R, 105 RBI, 25 SB
Pacing to a 650-PA season, we'd have: 650 PA, 167 H, 40 HR, 111 R, 100 RBI, 24 SB

That would come with a .277 batting average and a .535 slugging percentage. Of course, it's absurd to project Buxton for 650 plate appearances at this point, and it's also pretty ridiculous to think he could keep that pace for a full season, but very few players will post those kinds of paces over any significant sample of data no matter how you manipulate the numbers to get what you want out of them. The guy is a potential league-winning fantasy player, the last three years have taught us that much.

Profile Changes in 2021

We haven't seen much of Buxton over the last three years, but when he's been at the plate he has been striking out a little bit less:

You can see that he posted a very respectable strikeout rate of 24.4% in 2021 - although again there's a good chance this would have ballooned up towards 27% or so even he had played more games. That said, he hasn't been at 27% since 2018, so there's some reason to believe he can stay at a moderate level going forward.

Buxton has also run pretty hot in flyball luck, posting a 28.8% HR/FB ratio, well above the league average. He hits the ball really hard when connecting, so he can absolutely continue to beat the league average, but chances are we see that number come down next year resulting in a lower home run rate. Buxton also benefited from a .344 BABIP last year. With his speed and usually high line-drive rates, he's a guy you'd expect to have a high BABIP, but .344 is probably above what we'd reasonably expect.

All of that is to say his .306 batting average in 2021 is likely not going to be repeated, but he can definitely be way better than the .230 guy we saw early on in his career. The walks will not be there, however, as he continues to swing a ton. His success at the plate in 2021 is certain to not make him want to be more patient either, so I will not be forecasting anything higher than another 6% walk rate in 2022, which hurts quite a bit in OBP leagues.

Enormous Downside

Buxton has not played more than 87 games since 2017. His games played count the last four years from most recent to least recent are 61, 39, 87, and 28. That leaves us without much of anything to call confidence that he can come anywhere near a full season. Most of the injuries haven't been weird one-off things like getting hit by a pitch either, there's been a lot of sprains, tears, and breaks in there - things that are a little bit more conducive to the "injury-prone" classification.

That said, a player being "injury-prone" has never been proven scientifically, and a lot of players are just "injury-prone" until all of a sudden they are not. Buxton did play basically a full season in 2017, playing 140 games - so we at least know his body CAN do it. The results weren't that great that year for fantasy purposes, but since then he has been one of the best per-game performers in the league.

The Twins also seem to be heading into a rebuilding phase, which means Buxton is unlikely to have much protection around him in the lineup. This could end up with him getting fewer pitches to hit, and could slow down his counting stat rates as well. Keep an eye on the Twins offseason.

All of this is to say that there are downsides to his fantasy game even if he does remain healthy. That doesn't change the fact that he would project to be a 35/25 guy pretty easily over 150 games, which is incredibly valuable for fantasy, but he's not a locked-in top-five bat over 150 games even he would by some miracle get there.

The Verdict

I'm not sure where Buxton's ADP is going to end up next year, but I imagine it's not much different than last year when Buxton was very, very cheap. The crazy numbers he posted last year might drive it up a little bit, but I think the fact that he once again couldn't play even 55% of the year will negate that in both leagues. That leaves Buxton as a guy I would love to grab as my third or fourth outfielder.

There are always guys you can replace your injured players with in free agency, and Buxton is one of the highest-upside lottery tickets you can buy in a draft. I'm a little less interested in it for OBP leagues, and the Twins lineup around him will make a difference as well, but if I'm picking a lane next year I'll once again be a buyer.

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