Byron Buxton will remain in Minnesota for the time being as his hometown of Baxley, Ga., slowly regains recovers to power after Hurricane Helene tore through the area. But when the Twins star center fielder returns home, he expects an offseason unlike the ones he’s had in the recent past after spending the past two winters rehabbing from knee surgery. This time, for the first time in about six years, he estimated, he is embarking on a healthy offseason. What’s that going to look like? “Relaxation,” Buxton said. “A lot of relaxation.” That means he won’t have to go in and out of physical therapists offices all winter. That means watching and coaching youth sports, joking that he didn’t think his oldest son, Brixton, would like him too much at the end of it. Buxton wrapped his 2024 season having played in 102 games for the Twins, marking the first time he reached triple digits — a goal of his — since he played 140 games in 2017. That came after a 2023 season in which Buxton did not play the outfield once. Now, the goal is to build upon that. “Is he at 100 percent? No. A lot of guys aren’t 100 percent,” Twins president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. “But I think it’s a good foundation to build on that he can go into an offseason not knowing he’s got a surgery around the corner and needs to come back from that, and that’s massive. So I think that’s going to give him a full offseason of work and development, and what that looks like, that’s awesome. Buxton went on the injured list once with knee inflammation and later missed a month during the second half of the season with hip inflammation, but he finished his season hitting .279 with 18 home runs and a 137 OPS+, a mark 37 percent better than the league average hitter. His 3.7 fWAR (Wins Above Replacement per FanGraphs) was second on the team behind shortstop Carlos Correa, and Buxton certainly made his impact felt with his glove when he was out in center field, too. “There are a lot of positives for me this year,” Buxton said. “I had goals set for myself and I achieved them, so it’s all about taking those little small wins and building off of those and just going from there.” Managing his workload and keeping him on the field as much as possible was a collaborative effort between Buxton, the Twins’ training staff and the coaches. Near the beginning of the season, the Twins were building in some off days for him and mixing in some DH at-bats. From May 22 on, he only went out to center, showing he could handle a workload much greater than he was able to in past years. From here, the question is can the Twins get even more from their star center fielder moving forward? “(It’s) awesome to get him out there for 100-plus games,” Falvey said. “Obviously that was a good outcome from where he’s been coming from the last few years, but he wants more than that. We want to figure out what that looks like.”