![\"Minnesota](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/STP-Z-TWINS-0820-01.jpg\")
Minnesota Twins’ Byron Buxton (25) stands at the plate after striking out to end the bottom of the third inning of a baseball game against the Athletics Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo\/Abbie Parr)<\/p>\nFORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 The wall of Byron Buxton\u2019s gym at home in his native Baxley, Ga., received a new decoration this winter: the results of the 2025 American League Most Valuable Player voting. They show Buxton in 11th place, just two points away from what would have been his first top-10 finish.<\/p>\n
Minnesota Twins’ Byron Buxton (25) stands at the plate after striking out to end the bottom of the third inning of a baseball game against the Athletics Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo\/Abbie Parr)<\/p>\n
It may not be the most aesthetically-pleasing d\u00e9cor, but it serves an important purpose for Buxton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pissed. I ain\u2019t going to lie to you,\u201d the Twins\u2019 center fielder said. \u201cYou surprised yourself a little bit and thought you put yourself in a good position, and you didn\u2019t. It\u2019s fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Buxton prepares for his 12th major league season in a Twins uniform, he\u2019s not shying away from the fact that the results of the voting weren\u2019t the only thing he wasn\u2019t particularly happy with this offseason. He also did not enjoy seeing his name in trade rumors following a season\u00a0during which he had pledged his loyalty publicly to the organization that drafted him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you know me and you know who I am, I don\u2019t like my name being blasted around all the time,\u201d Buxton said. \u201cSo this offseason for me was a little different \u2014 peaceful, but different.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the beginning of the offseason, the direction the Twins were going to take wasn\u2019t fully yet known. Asked in September if he expected starters Pablo L\u00f3pez and Joe Ryan to be on the roster in 2026, then-president of business and baseball operations Derek Falvey said it was his \u201chope\u201d three times, but that it required some \u201congoing conversations with ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until December that Twins officials started to publicly declare that they planned to hang onto Buxton, L\u00f3pez and Ryan and build around them rather than continue to tear apart the club, putting trade speculation to rest.<\/p>\n
That is something it seems as if Buxton would have liked to have heard earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll it takes is for somebody at the top to go to the media (and say) \u2018We\u2019re not trading you,\u2019 \u201d Buxton said. \u201cTrade rumors stop. Now, we don\u2019t have those conversations. That\u2019s how simple this could get. \u2026 It\u2019s different. It\u2019s different.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, in camp, that\u2019s behind Buxton and the Twins.<\/p>\n
Buxton met up in November with new manager Derek Shelton in Jacksonville, Fla., about two hours from Baxley, and Shelton communicated to him that he was part of the team\u2019s plans. New executive chair Tom Pohlad also paid him a visit.<\/p>\n
The center fielder spent the offseason at home training, with some travel sprinkled in. A trip to Disney World was among the highlights. Buxton, who described himself as \u201cnot a rollercoaster person,\u201d went on a Little Mermaid-themed ride with his youngest son, Baire, while the rest of the family hit up the more high-speed rides like TRON Lightcycle.<\/p>\n
Right after he returned home from Orlando, Fla., he received a call from Mark DeRosa, the manager of the United States\u2019 World Baseball Classic team. He jumped at the chance to join the team.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to have that opportunity, to be able to put that jersey on, finally, is something special,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
To get himself ready for it, he said he started preparing probably a month earlier than normal. He\u2019ll be gone for much of camp \u2014 the tournament runs from March 5-17 but teams congregate earlier to train together and play exhibition games. But when he returns, he will yet again be the heart and soul of the Twins\u2019 roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important to me that he is a Minnesota Twin. As important, it\u2019s important to him,\u201d Shelton said. \u201cHe said it publicly prior to me being here. He said it publicly after I got here. \u2026 We want him to be a Minnesota Twin. He made a commitment to the organization, and the organization made a commitment to him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 The wall of Byron Buxton\u2019s gym at home in his native Baxley, Ga., received…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,2223,936,2123,55,2596,2595,19,60,4,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-574529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-byron-buxton","10":"tag-kansas","11":"tag-kansas-city","12":"tag-kansas-city-royals","13":"tag-kansascity","14":"tag-kansascityroyals","15":"tag-major-league-baseball","16":"tag-minnesota-twins","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116076821962032577","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}