The trade buzz around Byron Buxton has cooled fast, and ESPN now sees the Minnesota Twins star as far less likely to move before the deadline.
Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel said Buxton’s odds of being dealt have dropped by 20%, sliding from “unlikely” at 30% to “extremely unlikely” at 10%. Their reasoning is simple: the latest comments from Buxton and Twins general manager Jeremy Zoll made a summer trade look a lot less realistic.
Buxton made his stance plain when he said, “I'm a Twin,” and Zoll followed that up by saying a deal, “it's not something we're exploring. It's not something we plan to explore.”
That combination pushed ESPN to cut the number down sharply, though Passan and McDaniel noted that taking Buxton completely off the board would still ignore the possibility of a team overwhelming Minnesota with an offer it could not turn down.
For now, though, the obstacles are obvious. Buxton has a no-trade clause and full control over whether he would be moved, and the Twins do not appear eager to shop him anyway.
The timing matters, too. With less than a month left before the MLB trade deadline, Minnesota is still hanging around the race. The Twins are 44-47 and sit just 1.5 games out of a Wild Card spot in a weak AL field.
That doesn’t guarantee anything, and the club may still be short of true contender status. But if Minnesota thinks it can stay in the postseason picture, Buxton looks much more like a player to keep than one to cash in.
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