Remember all that drama last spring with the Los Angeles Dodgers and closer Jonathan Broxton? Well, Don Mattingly won't have Broxton to kick around any more. Not if you believe Broxton's agent. Dylan Hernandez:
Jonathan Broxton Won’t Be A Dodger In 2012
Jonathan Broxton has ruled out the possibility of re-signing with the Dodgers, according to his agent, BB Abbott.
“He will not be back in L.A.,” Abbott wrote in a text message Monday morning.
Abbott said his client is close to moving on.
“He had multiple suitors and we should have something tentative in the next few days,” Abbott said.
One thing you have to like about Jonathan Broxton: He's pretty obviously not superstitious. If he were, he wouldn't have signed on with an agent whose name means "base on balls". (Now, if Brad Lidge hires H.R. Haldeman, I'll really be impressed.)
We don't know if Broxton's ever going to be the same guy he was. He's best-known, I suppose, for giving up that home run to Matt Stairs, but great pitchers do give up home runs every once in a while. And yeah, Broxton might have been a little scared when he walked Stairs on four pitches, one year later. Great pitchers get scared every once in a while, too.
But Broxton was pretty great until Joe Torre ordered him to throw 48 pitches in this game (or if you prefer, 44 pitches in this game). His 2011 season was of course a disaster. And 2012? Nobody can know for sure. Medical science, while greatly advanced since the 1700s, still doesn’t seem to know much about elbow problems.
Broxton “underwent a minor procedure in September to shave down a bone spur and remove loose bodies” ... but it’s only minor when it’s happening to somebody else. He’ll get a contract this winter and he’ll be a millionaire and he’ll deserve it. But nobody can know if we’ll ever see the 2006-2009 version of Jonathan Broxton again.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers are well-stocked with closer candidates, as rookie Javy Guerra performed well in that role and Kenley Jansen is a freaky strikeout machine.
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