Jonathan Broxton Is A Robot

Alireza, a frequent commenter on this site, wanted to give his thoughts on how good Jonathan Broxton has been this year. His article may seem ill-timed now, but in all fairness to him, he submitted it to me on Saturday, and I was the one that wanted to delay its publication.

While some might say that Jonathan Broxton's latest outing negates the point of Alireza's article, I disagree. In my opinion, this is as good a time as any to remind all the Dodger fans out there exactly how spoiled we've been this year. It's also a good time to remind people not to panic.

Leading into the season, many were doubting Jonathan Broxton's ability to be the top tier closer a World Series contender needs. Some, like Marc Hulet over at Fangraphs, thought Big John should, at a minimum, be relegated to a platoon with Hong-Chih Kuo, who was dominant last year. Granted, everyone knows Kuo's injury history and it has sadly taken him out of the Dodger bullpen again this year.

So what has the Ox done to silence his critics? He has quite simply brutalized major league hitters and become the most dominant relief pitcher in baseball. Broxton has put up strikeout numbers, 14.81 K/9, that look like they belong in a video game and has combined that with the kind of control that would make his mentor, Takashi Saito, proud. Broxton's K/BB is an absolutely sick 4.77, and his WHIP is 0.77. That's right, Broxton gives up less than one walk or hit per inning. He has given up a ridiculous .131 BAA, and has been even better against lefties at .074, even though he has actually faced more southpaws. Indeed, as pretty as his 2.15 ERA going into Friday's perfect performance was, it is almost a full run higher than his FIP of 1.20. How dominant is that? His current FIP after approximately half the season is better than any season that Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley, Lee Smith or Trevor Hoffman ever had. The only closer I could find that has ever been more dominant was Eric Gagne in his legendary 2003 season.

Sounds like Big Jon has put a gag on all his critics.

How does he do it?

So we know just how good Broxton has been empirically, but how has he gotten there? Basically, he has done it by taking his two pitch arsenal to a new level.

We all know Broxton throws hard, but he is throwing even harder than ever. This has likely come from his body's own maturation (he just turned 25 last month) as well as the fact that he appears to have cleaned up much of his previously iffy mechanics. Whatever the reason, Broxton is officially averaging 97.5 MPH on his fastball according to the PitchFX tool, 1.2 MPH higher than last year. I say "officially", because PitchFX is notoriously buggy, and has had trouble distinguishing between sliders and fastballs. In fact, I noticed no fewer than four 90-91 MPH sliders being scored as fastballs in a recent game. Given that, it is likely that Broxton is actually averaging 98 MPH. Needless to say, that is fast, and he only seems to be getting better. In Friday's game at PETCO, he struck out Kevin Kouzmanoff with a high fastball clocked at 103 MPH. That is just not fair, especially considering that Broxton also showed 10" of horizontal movement tailing in on the right-handed Kouzmanoff. Perhaps even more unfair was Broxton's 102 MPH first pitch strike to Eliezer Alfonso, which hit the outside corner and had 15" of arm-side horizontal movement.

Even more impressive, and more important to his success this year, has been the development of Broxton's secondary pitch, a hard slider that acts more like a curveball up in the zone and like a tradition slider when thrown down. While command has never actually been a huge problem for Broxton when looking at the numbers, almost all of the struggles he has had have come as a result of his loss of faith in and inability to command his slider. That has changed completely this year, and has been reflected in the fact that Broxton has thrown his slider 29.2% of the time this season, as compared to 22.0% of the time last year. He has reduced his fastball use by an equal amount, going from 75.4% to 68.2%. This obviously keeps hitter more off balance, and may well be helping his velocity, as he isn't throwing as hard as often and is preserving arm strength.

This is all borne out in the numbers, which say that Broxton's fastball isn't his most valuable pitch. Indeed, Broxton's slider has actually been worth 2.2 runs more than his fastball this year, having already saved the Dodgers 8.3 runs.

One More Thing

There is one other thing that has really made Broxton shine this year. We have always known he can strike people out, and his control, which has never been poor by any means, has been sublime. The biggest change, however, has been Broxton's Derek Lowe-esque worm killing tendencies. Broxton's GB rate has soared to 56.7% this year, and his GB/FB is 2.71. His LD% has remained fairly steady at 22.4%, which means his .253 BABIP is not a fluke. Essentially, Broxton has been attacking hitters low, particularly with the slider, and has been inducing ground balls at a very high rate. If Broxton's newfound command of his slider, not to mention the consistent destruction of the 100 MPH barrier, hasn't scared hitters enough, the fact that they are pounding everything into the dirt must be.

Conclusion

Jonathan Broxton isn't just a promising young player anymore. He isn't merely top-tier closer either. He is quite simply the best, most dominant relief pitcher in baseball.