Byron Buxton’s latest injury setback may end up echoing well beyond the final days of the 2026 season.
The Twins announced last week that Buxton had arthroscopic surgery on his right hip, and the procedure included a labral repair, decompression and cam resection. The impingement he dealt with throughout the year explains part of that work, but the labral repair is the piece that makes this feel more serious. Recovery from that kind of surgery, based on previous MLB cases, can take about six to eight months.
That timeline is what turns the Twins’ wait into the real story.
Buxton’s final game came on August 25 in Sacramento. He did not undergo surgery until September 18.
Minnesota essentially shut him down for the season on September 11, but the operation still didn’t happen for another week. By then, the Twins’ postseason hopes were all but gone anyway.
At first, there was still some belief that Buxton might find his way back before the year ended after he limped off against the A’s. That possibility faded quickly.
Once it did, the logic for delaying surgery got much harder to defend. Every week mattered.
Six months from September 18 is March 18, which is just one week before Opening Day. Stretch that recovery to eight months, and Buxton’s return doesn’t come until May 18, 47 games into the 2027 season.
No one can put a clean date on a recovery like this. Buxton could move faster than expected.
He could also need more time, and his injury history makes the longer road feel more plausible. That uncertainty is exactly why the lost weeks sting.
If the Twins had made the call earlier, Buxton could have started the rehab process sooner. Instead, they waited until late September to do a procedure that could keep their best player out for a chunk of next season.
The frustrating part is that this hip issue wasn’t some new surprise. The Twins had been dealing with it for months.
Buxton and manager Derek Shelton both sounded confident before the surgery that he’d be ready for next season. The wording varied, especially around whether that meant spring training or Opening Day.
Either way, that optimism looks a lot shakier now. Had the operation happened three weeks earlier, the odds of him being ready on time would at least have been better.
There’s also a big difference between being “ready for next season” and being physically built to handle a full workload. Few players actually play 162 games anymore, and Buxton has averaged 107 games per year over the last three seasons, which were the healthiest of his last decade. Even if the recovery goes smoothly, a player coming back from this kind of surgery may still need time to regain strength and rebuild toward his normal workload.
That’s part of what has made Buxton such a complicated asset for Minnesota over the years. The Twins have tried to maximize his impact while working around the injuries.
Through the first five seasons of his contract, Minnesota paid him roughly $70 million, while FanGraphs estimates he produced about $122.5 million in value over that span. Even with all the missed time, he has been enormously valuable.
Which is why the extra month of recovery time matters so much. Maybe it won’t cost Buxton anything in 2027.
Maybe the rehab goes perfectly and he’s out there on Opening Day. But the Twins didn’t have to take that chance.
This is the kind of decision that won’t be fully measured until next season. If Buxton is ready to go in April and stays on the field, the timing fades into the background. If he has to miss the start of the year because the recovery stretches toward eight months, those September weeks will loom much larger.
Minnesota already has plenty to sort through this offseason, from payroll to roster direction to the bigger question of what kind of team it wants to build around the core it still has. The last thing the Twins needed was to make life harder for their most important player.
There was a point when waiting made sense, because Buxton was still trying to return. Once it became clear that his season was basically done, the clock should have started then. Instead, the Twins waited, and now they have to hope those lost weeks don’t show up in April and May.
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