AL MVP voting sees Byron Buxton barely miss out on $3 million bonus

Buxton finished one spot shy of earning a nice bonus for himself.

Sep 20, 2025; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Twins center fielder Byron Buxton (25) reacts to his strikeout against the Cleveland Guardians during the ninth inning of game one of a double header at Target Field. | Matt Krohn-Imagn Images

Had Byron Buxton finished in the top ten in American League Most Valuable Player voting, he would've notched a $3 million bonus, based on incentives written into his contract.

He finished 11th.

Aaron Judge narrowly beat out Cal Raleigh for AL MVP, as announced at the 2025 MLB Awards Show on Thursday night in Las Vegas. Shohei Ohtani unanimously won in the NL, making it the first time in MLB history that both leagues have a repeat MVP.

On the AL side, Buxton received three seventh-place votes, three eight-place votes, one ninth-place vote, and seven tenth-place votes from the panel of 30 Baseball Writers of America voters. That resulted in a weighted total of 30 points, which was 11th among all AL players. He finished two spots behind Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña, who received 32 points.

The full top 12:

1. Aaron Judge, Yankees: 355
2. Cal Raleigh, Mariners: 335
3. Jose Ramirez, Guardians: 224
4. Bobby Witt Jr., Royals: 215
5. Tarik Skubal, Tigers: 139
6. Julio Rodriguez, Mariners: 136
7. George Springer, Blue Jays: 125
8. Garrett Crochet, Red Sox: 74
9. Junior Caminero, Rays: 37
10. Jeremy Peña, Astros: 32
11. Byron Buxton, Twins: 30
12. Nick Kurtz, Athletics: 29

There are all kinds of incentives written into the seven-year, $100 million contract extension Buxton signed with the Twins in December 2021, which was structured as such because of the unique combination of his talent and his difficulty staying healthy. Among those are incentives for plate appearance thresholds (for which Buxton earned an extra $1 million this season) and for his finish in MVP voting.

Each year of the deal, Buxton is eligible to earn an $8 million bonus for winning MVP, $7 million for second place, $6 million for third, $5 million for fourth, $4 million for fifth, or $3 million for finishing sixth through tenth. He missed that by one spot.

Byron Buxton placed 11th in the AL MVP voting, which means he missed out on a $3 million bonus by one spot. pic.twitter.com/8Ezv3AFF29

— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) November 14, 2025

Two of the seventh-place votes for Buxton came from the two Minnesota-based BBWAA members who voted: Betsy Helfand of the Pioneer Press and Phil Miller of the Star Tribune. The other came from Chandler Rome, who covers the Astros for The Athletic. 16 of 30 voters left Buxton off their ten-player ballot entirely.

Here's the MVP Ballots ... https://t.co/sVtkT0ofWU pic.twitter.com/MPhSbVHB0o

— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) November 14, 2025

Buxton had the best year of his career at age 31. He stayed mostly healthy, recording 542 plate appearances in 126 games (although those 36 missed games may still have hurt him in voting consideration). Buxton hit .264 with a career-high 35 home runs, 7 triples, 97 runs scored, 83 RBI, 24 stolen bases, and an .878 OPS (or a 136 OPS+, where 100 is the league average). He also played his usual strong defense in center field. Buxton was named an All-Star for the second time and won his first career Silver Slugger award.

Throughout all of the Twins' losing and their trade deadline fire sale this summer, Buxton — who has a full no-trade clause until 2027 — has maintained that he wants to be a Twin for life. But a recent report indicated that if the Twins continue their teardown by trading Joe Ryan or Pablo Lopez, the second overall draft pick in 2012 might reconsider that stance because of his desire to contend for a championship.

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