Baxley native Byron Buxton, centerfielder for the Minnesota Twins, has emerged as Minnesota’s MVP at the halfway point of the 2025 baseball season, according to a report from ESPN.
Primarily using AXE as a measure of player performance, an index that gathers major statistical metrics and combines them into one evaluation value (100 is the league average), Buxton is the Twins’ best player. According to the ESPN report, he has an AXE value of 130, the highest for Minnesota and 16th best in the league.
This season, Buxton is hitting .272 with 19 home runs and 51 RBI. Most importantly, he’s played in 70 games, which puts him on pace to play 130, according to ESPN. The biggest question mark for Buxton, one which he’s surely tired of reading, is the number of games he’s played (or rather, hasn’t played). When he’s healthy, Buxton is one of the best centerfielders in the game.
Unfortunately, that’s rarely been the case. If you take out this year’s 70 games, he’s played in 772 Major League games in 10 years – an average of just over 82 games per season (that takes into account the COVID-shortened 2020 season). In terms of games played, over the last 10 years (not counting this year), he has actually played a little over five years.
According to baseball-reference.com, Buxton’s 162-game average is 29 home runs and 78 RBI with a .247 batting average. Defensively, he’s among the best there is, with elite speed and the ability to make the toughest of plays look routine.
The MLB playoff race doesn’t really begin until the second half of the season and the Twins have their work cut out for them. They’re currently 41-46 and in second place in the AL Central. They trail first-place Detroit by 12.5 games and are seventh in the Wild Card race, four games back.
One of the keys to closing that gap is a healthy Byron Buxton. And that’s something everyone wants to see.