Royals Close To Signing Broxton

The Royals are on the verge of signing former Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton, per Ken Rosenthal. Injuries and ineffectiveness limited to Broxton to just 12.2 innings in 2011 but he had minor elbow surgery after the season and no doubt hopes to revert to his 2009 self in hopes of a bigger payday next offseason. That season he had 36 saves and 114 strikeouts in 76 innings (13.5 SO/9!). Anything close to that he will be the natural choice to succeed Joakim Soria if/when he gets dealt. Of course a good year and Broxton himself will likely garner a lot of attention at the trade deadline.

Year	Age	W	L	ERA	G	SV	IP	BB	SO	ERA+	WHIP	H/9	BB/9	SO/9
2005	21	1	0	5.93	14	0	13.2	12	22	71	1.829	8.6	7.9	14.5
2006	22	4	1	2.59	68	3	76.1	33	97	174	1.231	7.2	3.9	11.4
2007	23	4	4	2.85	83	2	82.0	25	99	156	1.146	7.6	2.7	10.9
2008	24	3	5	3.13	70	14	69.0	27	88	134	1.174	7.0	3.5	11.5
2009	25	7	2	2.61	73	36	76.0	29	114	154	0.961	5.2	3.4	13.5
2010	26	5	6	4.04	64	22	62.1	28	73	96	1.476	9.2	4.0	10.5
2011	27	1	2	5.68	14	7	12.2	9	10	67	1.895	10.7	6.4	7.1
7 Seasons		25	20	3.19	386	84	392.0	163	503	132	1.232	7.3	3.7	11.5

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

This is not a bad move in my opinion, though I think I'll add if he's healthy as a qualifier. I thought the opening day bullpen was dang near set in stone but this could be a prelude to another move. Something like this one perhaps.