The Minnesota Twins Byron Buxton is coming off a pretty healthy season. He played in 102 games in 2024, the most the oft-injured centerfielder has played for the Twins since 2017. And he's had his first fully healthy offseason without anything to rehab during the winter months.
He's also now a veteran. A leader. And a key piece for this Twins team if they're going to rebound from a very poor second half of the season in 2024 and get back into the postseason. WCCO's Jason DeRusha is at Twins Spring Training all this week and caught up to the Twins star at his locker.
Last year when we were talking, you were talking about just how much pain you were in one season ago. What was it like to go through 100 games feeling pretty good?
I made it. I mean, I went on the (Injured List) last year, so at some point I didn't feel good. So it's one of those things, keeping perspective. Don't take this for granted. Go out there every day like it's your last and have fun doing it.
When you look at this team, and really for a while now you and Correa are sort of the soul of the team. Rocco (Baldelli) said you guys are the heart and the soul and everyone looks to you. How do you deal with that? How do you look at your role as sort of the leader for these guys?
Go about my business. I'm not about to change just because I'm put in a new role. Like when you change, that's when things don't go your way. So I'm still the same person I was when I walked in here as a rookie. Yeah, I'm a leader, but to these guys I'm just one of one of the teammates, one of the brothers that they can come up and talk to, obviously. When you put a title on it and you have young guys that come in here, they feel different, like they can't talk to you and that's how it was when I came up. I'm not going to be like that. I want you to be able to talk, communicate, and do whatever you want to do and make yourself better as a player but also as a person because this game is going to end.
There's a new hitting approach this year with the team. Your thoughts on that?
I ain't have the meeting yet to get too much into that, but we hit this offseason together. It was good, you know, didn't didn't change nothing. Worked on little bitty stuff that could help me out as far as my game plan, but nothing physically or mechanically in my swing. So that was that was a positive note when, obviously, new hitting guy coming in and just let you know that you're on the right track, puts you in a positive mind.
The Twins open Grapefruit League play in Fort Myers this Saturday, February 22 against the Atlanta Braves at 12:00 p.m. You can hear the game live on 830 WCCO and on the Audacy App.