Byron Buxton's season is over. With the Twins star set to have hip surgery, here's what to know.

Bobby Nightengale, Star Tribune on Sep 11, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — Twins center fielder Byron Buxton is scheduled to undergo arthroscopic surgery on his right hip next week, putting an end to his All-Star year.

Buxton tried to return once more this season, hoping to help the Twins push for a playoff spot, but his troublesome right hip never improved to the point where he was close to rejoining the roster. He is set to have surgery next Friday, which will be performed by Dr. Christopher Larson.

The expectation, Buxton said, is that he will be ready for the start of spring training in 2027.

“It’s surgery, so it’s something that, at some point in time, it’ll probably come back,” Buxton said. “But they definitely reassured me that I’ll be fine the rest of my career going forward. So that’s the encouraging part, for sure.”

Buxton, voted an All-Star starter, hit .254 with 25 homers, 46 RBIs, 65 runs and an .829 OPS in 93 games. He had three stints on the injured list this year because of his troublesome right hip, an injury that originated in 2021 and sidelined him for the final month of the 2022 season.

Hip pain flared in May, causing him to miss five games before resuming to hit at an All-Star level. His hip bothered him again at the end of June, and he sat for four games after an MRI exam showed an impingement.

“It was like, all right, this is managing mode until it ain’t manageable,” Buxton said. “I knew as long as we managed it, which we did, I’ll be all right. I’ll be fine. And then just kind of one of those things, it didn’t last long after that.”

Buxton wasn’t the same hitter after he aggravated his hip on July 5, coming out of a game at Yankee Stadium when he attempted to steal second base. Pain shot through his side when he accelerated into a sprint and put him on the IL for the first time this season.

He returned to the IL from July 29- Aug. 13. His season ended when he came out of a game on Aug. 25, unable to bend down to pick up a ball in the right-center gap in Sacramento. He batted .172 with zero homers, two doubles, one RBI, eight runs and a .477 OPS over his last 18 games.

“I wouldn’t say I couldn’t be the player I wanted to be,” Buxton said. “I had those good days and bad days. I had a stretch where I’d go 4 for 8 and go, ‘I’m about to turn the page.’ Then, the next four days I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to turn the bat.’

“Honestly, I don’t know what else we could have done to prevent it from getting where it’s at. We did the shot. Gave it rest. Gave me a few years. I guess time just caught up to it.”

Buxton, who will turn 33 in December, believes his hip injury stems from all the swings he took over the years, the wear-and-tear as he put torque through his back leg.

“Personally, it was painful to watch,” manager Derek Shelton said. “Not painful to watch him, but to know what he goes through every day to be on the field, and to know him as a human being and how much he cares about his teammates. I think at times he felt like, ‘I’m not doing my part.’ The fact that he was trying to do it, he was doing his part in the attempt to help us win games.”

Buxton has played fewer than 100 games in four of the last six seasons. He’s encouraged that surgery should solve his hip issues, a source of off-and-on pain for several years.

“If that’s the only way that it’s going to get it fixed and get me back to normal, just taking the positives from the negatives,” Buxton said. “That’s a positive for me to go forward with.”

Buxton, under contract through 2028, is owed $30 million over the next two seasons. He finished 11th in the American League Most Valuable Player voting last year, and he felt like he was on the verge of a career year until his hip gave out on him.

“He’s a grinder, man,” Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “He’s been fighting through this for a little while and he’s done some unbelievable things this year. We all know the player he is, the person he is.”