Minneapolis — Byron Buxton rushed back to the diamond, alongside Carlos Correa, through pain at the end of the season so they could give their team the best possible chance of turning around its late-season slump and make a last-gasp push to hold on to a playoff spot.

It didn’t end up being enough — but even as the disappointed and subdued members of the Twins’ clubhouse said their goodbyes following the premature end of a once-promising season, Buxton stood in front of his locker with renewed optimism for the offseason to come.

You see, this will be a healthy offseason without restrictions for Buxton, and considering his various ordeals throughout more than a half-decade, he was determined to take that as a point of pride and positivity amid the greater overall disappointment.

“It’s not where we want to be, but I don’t look at it as a negative,” Buxton said. “There’s a lot of positives for me this year. 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.”

How long had it been since Buxton had been able to experience a “normal” offseason before this one?

“About six years,” he noted after pausing to think about it.

This time, there will not be a recovery from a shoulder surgery, or another knee surgery, or rest and recovery from some other season-ending ailment. Buxton’s knee ended the season in a decent place of management, he noted, and he didn’t anticipate any significant health considerations for his programming as he returned home to Georgia with his family.

“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,” president of baseball operations Derek Falvey said. “I think that’s going to give him a full offseason of work and development — and what that looks like, that’s awesome.”

What Buxton really wanted of himself at the end of the season was two things: He wanted to cross the 100-game threshold for the first time since 2017, and he wanted to finish the season healthy.

He accomplished both.

Clearly, there’s more progress that can be made for Buxton and the Twins to build on this proof of concept, but even this small-ish step is hugely significant for the center fielder, who spoke of the hope that these smaller goals are the necessary step to the bigger benchmarks he and the Twins hope are now more attainable in his future.

Not only did Buxton appear in 102 games — indeed, his most since he played 140 games in ‘17 — but he also surged at the plate by hitting .279/.335/.524 with 18 homers, was worth 3.6 WAR, per Baseball-Reference, and made 94 defensive appearances in center field, up from the, well, zero of last season.

He’ll take it — and he’s also eager to finally just get to be a dad and husband this offseason.

“Relaxation. A lot of relaxation,” Buxton said. “Not a lot of going in and out of [physical therapists].”

His three sons — Brixton, Blaze and Baire — are certainly disappointed that the Twins didn’t end up playing into October, Buxton said. And it seems that dad’s newly found free time might lead to an offseason of greater athletic scrutiny for the sons — and that’s something Byron Buxton is very excited to see.

“They don’t like it,” Buxton said. “By no means, but now I get to go home and be a dad, coach travel ball, coach football. Just go home and be a dad. They’re good, but they’d rather me be playing. Now I get to go watch [Brixton] and coach him, so I don’t think he’s going to like me too much after that.”

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