Keeping Byron Buxton Share this story Through the first seventeen games of the season, Byron Buxton is hitting .438 with an OPS close to 1.5. He feels confident, he looks confident and the Twins would be talking about the Nelson Cruz trade market without him. With a strangely low amount of fanfare, he has established himself as the most exciting player in the game. It’s been quite a rise since the pandemic began for Buxton—At the end of 2019 he was facing serious shoulder surgery and had shown himself to be, when healthy, a defensive specialist who could eke out an .800 OPS. Provided he got hot at the right time, his production would fall somewhere between Jason Heyward and Peter Bourjos.