Don't really have a problem with the trade. Fact is despite how the pen has thrown this year they are relatively untested when it comes to the playoffs and we just added a player who's thrown in the playoffs in three different seasons. Is broxton a great upgrade statistically over what the Reds have? Maybe not, but as they say you can't buy experience. Or maybe you can.
Feel free to disagree with how I feel. I obviously had a higher grade on these guys than many in the ORG do. Perhaps those who appreciate these guys more are frequent flyers in the Minors, those who don't think much of them don't frequent it. Might explain some things.
"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."
--Woody Hayes
Why all the fuss about his K rate? After seeing guys like Ondrusek and Arredondo walk over 5 per nine, I want a guy with Brox' stats. Don't you ever watch a game against a weak hitting team like the Pads and tell yourself "the only way we can lose this game is if the bullpen starts walking people?" I think that all the time. I don't care if my set up man strikes out the side. I just don't want free passes
DP
Let me explain why many people have a hard time with your logic here, doug.
When Bill DeWitt dealt Frank Robinson, he called Robbie "an old 30" and referenced three years of declining numbers, fewer stolen bases, higher Ks, less walks. He was still very productive, but it looked liked his best days-- those of a 1.000 OPS monster-- were behind him. Most experts agreed that Robinson, though still a very productive player, wasn't what he used to be.
He was offered Dick Baldschun, a 29-year-old relief ace, similar to Ryan Madson or Gene Garber. Most guys around the league liked his ability to eat up innings. He'd already had two seasons above 1.7 WAR in his career, and, though coming off a poor statistical season, was considered among most experts to be one of the better relief pitchers in the game.
Not only did they receive Baldschun, they also grabbed a 21-year-old OF who had just gone .301/ .380/ .523/ .902 in AAA PCL, Dick Simpson. This wasn't the PCL of today's hyper-inflated offensive numbers. Simpson was 50 points ahead of his nearest Seattle Angel teammate. The league average OPS was .705. Simpson, the seventh youngest player in the league, was just behind Lee May on the PCL OPS leaderboard, two of only three guys 23 or under that were there. Simpson was, at the time, one of the top prospects in the game.
And on top of that, the Reds received Milt Pappas. an All-Star pitcher with a three-year WAR average of 3.0 who had just turned 26. By almost all accounts, Pappas was in the process of turning into an ace. His three-year average ERA+ was a 122. He was also a winner, having amassed 110 wins in his nine-year Baltimore career to that point.
The deal for Robinson would be akin, in pure WAR numbers, to dealing Matt Holliday for Matt Cain, Sean Marshall, and Wil Myers.
According to your logic, it's a deal is not only good, but great. After all, many in baseball thought Robinson too high-strung, hypersensitive. A rumor around the league was that he had a major problem with Vada Pinson, another huge star in the Red lineup putting up comparable numbers. (Robinson's 1965 WAR was lower than Pinson's, 6.2 - 6.0.) He was also speaking his mind more and more-- a huge problem in the city of Cincinnati at the time.
Broxton is a decent pickup on the cheap. He's not a great closer, but he should provide value, if only by taking some of the burden off Marshall and Chapman. He's been kind of a gas can in KC -- he rarely has a clean, 1-2-3 inning. But as an option in the 7th inning, I think he'll be fine.
"I prefer books and movies where the conflict isn't of the extreme cannibal apocalypse variety I guess." Redsfaithful
I'm sure every poster has his or her reason(s) for not posting in a forum and I imagine no two reasons are completely identical. And in my own case, it's not that I don't follow, it's that I know most of these guys will never cut it at the Major League level, and some of the ones who will, won't ever suit up for the Reds. As such, that's personally why I don't invest a lot of time participating in the discussions down there.
I do think it's way easier to fall in love with prospects because people can deal in ceilings rather than watch where they're actually walking. There is a certain level of imagination allowed when talking about prospects because there's always the notion they'll develop and live up to whatever perception a person has of them. I think that happens a lot when these guys are traded, even though a lot of neutral prospect rankings don't match the same sort of value for the players that is seen on the minor league forum.
To each his own. There's nothing wrong, certainly, with appreciation. But the appreciation can also be a detriment at times if someone invests a lot of hope for a prospect that might not match the actual odds of success.
"No matter how good you are, you're going to lose one-third of your games. No matter how bad you are you're going to win one-third of your games. It's the other third that makes the difference." ~Tommy Lasorda
Scrap, I am not going to even comment on that. I wasn't around then, I don't know if that is how most of that went down or anything like that. So I can't compare it to my thinking on other deals.
Brox has walked more than 1 in an appearance this season three times and allowed more than one earned run twice. Are you sure you are talking about the same guy? I don't see the same crazy bouts of wildness or "barfing" all over himself that you have seen this season.
Do players still receive the same performance boost in switching from the American League to the National League that they used to? I.e., is it reasonable to expect Brox's numbers to improve simply because he's now facing NL lineups rather than superior AL hitting?
BTW, honest questions. I don't have a preconceived answer.
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