Reds Acquire Jonathan Broxton

[RedsManRick]

Pretty much. By evalauting the rationale (as much as can be known) or the strength of arguments for and against at the time of the trade, an assessment is actually much freer from the noise that occurs as life happens.

Frankly, with most relief pitchers, it's pretty much a coin flip. In Broxton's case, look at the medical records, have some scouts watch him pitch and then not pay alot for him. Its pretty hard to argue with what seems to be their rationale-placating a trust issue and a depth concern with their pen coupled with Broxton's a playoff track record proably helping too.

Would Broxton pitching badly in a Reds uniform really invalidate their reason's for trading for him? If anything, I'd argue Chapman's issues would speak more to a evaluation than any results Broxton actually produced.

The key here, as all we forget from time to time, is that we don't know what the Reds' scouts saw prior the trade. We really don't know what the Reds expected from Broxton and why, so it's difficult to for us as fans to assess the logic side of things.

If they come out and give us a "we like Rheal Cormier because of his low ERA" type of explanation, I see no problem with us tearing that apart. And I tend to think that the explanation you provide above is fairly accurate. But I don't think we should dismiss the possibility that the Reds projected Broxton to be more effective from a K:BB standpoint for the rest of the season than he had been to date.

[dougdirt]

Wow, you went from 100% to 50% to 30% in matter of minutes.

In fact, going from 6.3 to 8.1 is actually less than 30%. It's about 28.6%.

Using K/9 is silly because he cut his walk rate by 60%, so he was facing considerable fewer batters now than he was then. His K rate went from 16.5% to 23.6%, a jump of 7.1%. 7.1/16.5 = 43% increase.

[edabbs44]

The key here, as all we forget from time to time, is that we don't know what the Reds' scouts saw prior the trade. We really don't know what the Reds expected from Broxton and why, so it's difficult to for us as fans to assess the logic side of things.

If they come out and give us a "we like Rheal Cormier because of his low ERA" type of explanation, I see no problem with us tearing that apart. And I tend to think that the explanation you provide above is fairly accurate. But I don't think we should dismiss the possibility that the Reds projected Broxton to be more effective from a K:BB standpoint for the rest of the season than he had been to date.

It seems like the "we don't know what the Reds scouts saw" card gets played a lot when the stating party turns out to be potentially wrong. Given that this (and other similar statements like what the doctors saw, etc) technically always applies is why it is so difficult to blow Reds management to smithereens on many decisions being made. Which typically happens all the time.

[dougdirt]

But I don't think we should dismiss the possibility that the Reds projected Broxton to be more effective from a K:BB standpoint for the rest of the season than he had been to date.

If they did, and I would imagine that could have seen something mechanically that they could have altered to improve his control, I still don't think they could have foreseen this much improvement. His K/BB with the Reds is 6.00. He has never been over 4 in his career and the best came when he was striking out 14 guys per 9 innings. The biggest difference of course is that his walk rate is 1.4/9ip, where his best previous career low was 2.7/9ip. Predicted better performance? Sure. Predicted this kind of performance? Incredibly doubtful.

[traderumor]

Might the only prediction they cared about was "closer insurance" and "upgrade in the setup role" and "we are a little thin after Marshall right now, let's get an upgrade." I think those were the talking points, in summary form, by those seeing the deal as a short-term good move, and that is basically how it has played out. I'm sure someone might have talked in terms of the math, but I'm not picturing trade discussions centering on percentages and ratios.

Chapman was still a little bit of unknown, his workload was piling up, and sure enough, his arm needed a break.

Marshall they depended on, he's been dependable. They really didn't like him as closer, that has been made clear.

Arredondo was known to be unreliable/unpredictable. He has been.

Ondrusek was in line for a significant role and no one wanted/trusted those results. That was true.

Simon was fool's gold. He's overperformed this year, not sure if its real or not. Dude throws some of the wildest curveball wild pitches on the planet. I didn't trust him for a larger role then, still don't know. He has been a pleasant surprise contributor, but I'm sure not putting him in any money spots.

Lecure has been a pleasant surprise of late, he was kind of meh at the time of the trade. He stepped up to fill the void when Chapman was gone, big contributor in that role.

Massett was not in the equation, if they got anything, they considered that bonus innings.

Hoover is a good young arm that may have a significant role in the 2013 and forward pen, but did we really think he was the answer to the question when they chose Broxton as the answer (nothwithstanding the "prospect always better option" crowd)?

[Sea Ray]

The key here, as all we forget from time to time, is that we don't know what the Reds' scouts saw prior the trade. We really don't know what the Reds expected from Broxton and why, so it's difficult to for us as fans to assess the logic side of things.

If they come out and give us a "we like Rheal Cormier because of his low ERA" type of explanation, I see no problem with us tearing that apart. And I tend to think that the explanation you provide above is fairly accurate. But I don't think we should dismiss the possibility that the Reds projected Broxton to be more effective from a K:BB standpoint for the rest of the season than he had been to date.

We don't have to know exactly what the scouts said. We know that they acquired him to help in the 8th/9th inning of games where the Reds were ahead or tied and he did exactly that.

We know enough now to say the following people were wrong:

That isn't a guy you should be going after to try and improve your bullpen.

But he did exactly that

It would be one thing to trade those two for two months of the 2009 Broxton. But the guy they just acquired is comparable to another Arredondo.

He clearly did a job that Jose hadn't done up to that point

Of course being wrong isn't limited to RZ members...

Kevin Goldstein:

Amazing trade for Royals. I might rather have Donnie Joseph than Broxton in the big leagues right now.

https://twitter.com/Kevin_Goldstein

[RedsManRick]

We don't have to know exactly what the scouts said. We know that they acquired him to help in the 8th/9th inning of games where the Reds were ahead or tied and he did exactly that.

We know enough now to say the following people were wrong:

But he did exactly that

He clearly did a job that Jose hadn't done up to that point

Of course being wrong isn't limited to RZ members...

While Doug and I were wrong about our projections for what Broxton would do as a Red, neither of us were wrong in what we actually said unless you are going back down the road of conflating performance and talent.

Doug and I were asserting that Broxton's talent portended a likely performance that didn't merit the trade. That his actual performance over 20 IP has arguably justified it doesn't affect our assessment of his talent at the time.

If you're playing blackjack and have 17 and the dealer has a 6 showing, an onlooker would be completely justified in saying that the smart move is to hold. If you then hit and draw a 4 while the dealer winds up with 20, you win and you get to keep the money. But that doesn't mean the onlooker was wrong. He wasn't saying that you WILL lose if you, just that the odds were not in your favor. That you drew the 4 doesn't change the fact that the odds were against you and thus the advice was sound, if wrong.

Now, if you were counting cards and knew that your odds of winning were much higher than the onlooker thought they were, that's a different conversation. But we shouldn't confuse the two.

One is a case of a bad process leading to a good outcome. The other is about incomplete information leading to a incorrect judgment of the quality of the process.

[dougdirt]

We don't have to know exactly what the scouts said. We know that they acquired him to help in the 8th/9th inning of games where the Reds were ahead or tied and he did exactly that.

We know enough now to say the following people were wrong:




But he did exactly that

Sure, he has. But he has done it by being an entirely different player. It would be like trading for Juan Pierre, then Juan Pierre turning into Todd Frazier. Nothing suggested Juan Pierre would turn into Todd Frazier. Just like nothing suggested that Broxton would cut his walk rate by 60% and increase his strikeout rate by 43%. To expect such a turnaround is crazy. Even if you expected improvement, those kinds of improvements are not one anyone should have reasonably expected. Heck, if he would only have improved his walk rate by 30% and his strikeout rate by 20%, it would have been in incredible improvement. But he doubled those improvements.

I am not at all upset that Broxton is performing outstandingly. I don't believe for a second that I was wrong about what I said at the time of the trade in regards to Broxton. Nothing suggested he was capable of what he has done as a Red so far, or even close to it.

[westofyou]

I've been wrong before.

See guys, not that hard to do.

You might try it some day

[Boss-Hog]

I've been wrong before.

See guys, not that hard to do.

You might try it some day

That's good advice.

[Tommyjohn25]

I'm TommyJohn25, and I was wrong about Jonathan Broxton.

[Chip R]

That's good advice.

Even the Fonz could do it - albiet with some practice.

[westofyou]

Even the Fonz could do it - albiet with some practice.

fonzie wrong desktop - YouTube

[Sea Ray]

While Doug and I were wrong about our projections for what Broxton would do as a Red, neither of us were wrong in what we actually said unless you are going back down the road of conflating performance and talent.

What good is telling us all about the numbers if it doesn't lead to accurate projections? Most players you acquire in trades will have weaknesses in their numbers. In other words they're not sure bets. The key is figuring out which ones will perform nicely after you acquire them. Ludwick on the offensive side did not have numbers that would suggest he'd contribute like he did but kudos to Walt for bringing him in. I recall folks saying when we acquired Rolen that he'd never hit for power again but he did exactly that and more for our Reds.

Simply put trades are all about projections. You're acquiring a guy based on what you think he'll do going forward

[traderumor]

While Doug and I were wrong about our projections for what Broxton would do as a Red, neither of us were wrong in what we actually said unless you are going back down the road of conflating performance and talent.

Doug and I were asserting that Broxton's talent portended a likely performance that didn't merit the trade. That his actual performance over 20 IP has arguably justified it doesn't affect our assessment of his talent at the time.

If you're playing blackjack and have 17 and the dealer has a 6 showing, an onlooker would be completely justified in saying that the smart move is to hold. If you then hit and draw a 4 while the dealer winds up with 20, you win and you get to keep the money. But that doesn't mean the onlooker was wrong. He wasn't saying that you WILL lose if you, just that the odds were not in your favor. That you drew the 4 doesn't change the fact that the odds were against you and thus the advice was sound, if wrong.

Now, if you were counting cards and knew that your odds of winning were much higher than the onlooker thought they were, that's a different conversation. But we shouldn't confuse the two.

One is a case of a bad process leading to a good outcome. The other is about incomplete information leading to a incorrect judgment of the quality of the process.

Except the blackjack analogy, as simplistic and understandable as you made it, isn't really what we have here, unless you want to say that the Reds had been counting cards and knew that there were only a few high cards left in the deck, so they had some supportable reason(s) to believe that they would win this hand.

I think it is acceptable to give the Reds more credit than they ignorantly said "hit me" and luckily drew a good card. Using that analogy is honestly insulting a lot of folks' intelligence around these parts.