The Twins have released veteran outfielder Keon Broxton, who’d been with their Triple-A affiliate in St. Paul, as first indicated on the Triple-A East transactions page at MiLB.com.
Broxton, 31, signed with Minnesota over the winter but never got a call to the big leagues this year even as the club has endured multiple injuries in the outfield. Byron Buxton, Alex Kirilloff and Jake Cave have all spent significant time on the injured list — Kirilloff’s season is over; Buxton has played in just 27 games — and Max Kepler has also missed some time.
Broxton would’ve seemed a natural fit to pick up some of those at-bats had he been productive, but that simply hasn’t been the case. The former Brewers center fielder has appeared in 73 games in St. Paul but posted just a .186/.288/.335 batting line with nine home runs. Broxton is 10-for-11 in stolen base attempts and has walked at a strong 11.7 percent clip, but his longstanding strikeout issues have climbed to new heights in 2021. He punched out in 44 percent of his plate appearances with the Saints prior to being cut loose.
Few players can match Broxton’s combination of power and speed, but sky-high strikeout tendencies have always come along with that tantalizing mix of tools. Even at his best with the 2016-17 Brewers, when Broxton hit .227/.318/.424 with 29 home runs and 44 steals in 707 trips to the plate, he fanned at a 37.6 percent pace.
It’s common, however, for contending clubs to pick up fleet-footed veterans like this in advance of September roster expansion. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Broxton land elsewhere on a minor league deal and eventually surface with a contender who can afford to carry a player who is primarily a pinch-runner or late-inning defensive specialist on its roster. Broxton is capable of playing all three outfield spots and carries a career mark of 19 Defensive Runs Saved in 2128 innings in center field. Overall, he’s a .209/.297/.388 hitter with 39 homers and 60 steals in 1026 big league plate appearances.
Keon Broxton is was the beta design Byron Buxton.
Guys like them make me appreciate how great Lou Brock was. He could hit the ball as far as anyone but decided that the best way to help his team was to get on base. What a player.
That power was on full display on June 17, 1962, in the first game of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds against the expansion New York Mets. With two outs in the first inning, Brock drove a slider from lefty Al Jackson to deep center. As he headed toward first base he could see center fielder Richie Ashburn racing back and was immediately thinking triple. As he neared second base, he saw umpire Stan Landes giving the home-run sign, but he thought he was signaling to Brock that he could make an inside-the-park home run so he continued to sprint around the bases. It was not until after he crossed home plate and was informed by a teammate that the ball had gone out of the park that he was aware of what he had just done. He had become only the third player to hit a ball out of the Polo Grounds to center field in a major-league game (Babe Ruth did it in 1921 before the stadium was remodeled and Joe Adcock repeated the feat in 1953, while Luke Easter had done so in a Negro League game in 1948; the next game after Brock’s homer, Henry Aaron also hit one out to center, becoming the fourth major-leaguer to do so.)
& you were there. Nice.
& I’m sure you were compiling their body mass indexes for future use.
@why, brings back memories of baseball in the 50’s. I would have really liked to have seen a game played at both the Polo Grounds, and Ebbets Field.
Lou Brock BMI = 23.7
And so it goes.
@hd, my dad would cut out of work every so often for a game at Ebbets when he worked in Brooklyn. My brother saw the Mets at the Polo Grounds. I watched a young Jim Kaat (BMI = 25.0) beat the yankees with a bus load of paper boys in my youth. Good times.
And he struck out a lot for his time.
The whole point of baseball is to score runs. Both homeruns and OBP are positive outcomes but I would say hitting home runs would probably help a little better than getting on base and relying on your teammate to drive you in.
Excellent reason why “table setters” don’t get the big bucks—run producers do.
“Table setter” don’t get the big bucks cuz the term is generally a euphemism for a terrible player with speed. If you have an OBP above .360 and any power at all, you’ll get paid.
The whole point of baseball is to score one more run than the other team. Pitching and defense and the three run homer.
1967 last game of the season, Dick Williams had his pitcher groove one for Harmon Killebrew so Olivia would come up with the bases empty. They won.
Why is just another mame for the trade rumors own TROLL BALDPHOENIX
ALL IRRELEVANT CRAP
anthony rendon is that way, too when he is healthy.
Holy crap I initially read that as Byron Buxton
I did as well.
I guess that it’s time that Keon struck out on his own.
Keon Broxton’s ideal usage would be a late inning replacement in a tie ballgame. After he inevitably makes the final out of the 9th, he can be the automatic (and insipid) runner on 2nd.
It feels weird calling him a veteran. It feels like he was a top prospect not long ago…
My nickname for Keon Broxton was Dion Keon,as he was so flashy like Dion Sanders. Great Physical skills, just too inconsistant!