Tag Archives: John Axford

August 30, 2013

Axford to St. Louis

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The Cardinals made a waiver deadline deal for John Axford. Axford still strikes out a high number of batters, nine per nine innings, but that’s way down from his previous dominant years. For a pitcher with a high K rate, he also allows a lot of hits. In other words, Axford allows a high BABIP, and that seems to be consistent through his career except for his stellar 2011 season. We’ll see how much he helps the Cardinals. The Brewers will get a player at a later date.

July 24, 2012

The Small Sample Closers

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One reason I’m loath to evaluate teams based on their relief pitching is that sample sizes are so small for individuals it is very difficult to predict performance. Someone can be great one year, horrible the next, then bounce back to be fine again. The supposed better relief pitchers get tougher assignments, so when they have a bad game or two, it looks like the end of the world.

John Axford of the Brewers recently lost his job as the closer to Francisco Rodriguez. All year long he was allowing too many walks and hits, but his ERA was decent. In June, players started hitting home runs, and eventually Axford became the setup man. Note that this was based on about 17 innings of work. That’s 80 batters faced. As we well know, anything can happen in 80 plate appearances.

Monday night, in his setup role, Axford pitched perfectly, retiring all four batters he faced. K-Rod walked three and allowed three hits, leading to four runs, a blown lead, and a loss. As the poet said:

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

The Brewers got burned by mousie sample sizes.

May 12, 2012 October 7, 2011

Axford in the Ninth

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John Axford comes on to close the game in the top of the ninth with the Brewers leading the Diamondbacks 2-1. It’s been a well pitched game so far, and Milwaukee needs just one more scoreless inning to advance to the NLCS.

Update: Gerardo Parra saves his best for last. His first hit of the series is a double, driven deep into the right-center gap. The Diamondbacks have three shots now to tie the game. Sean Burroughs is up to bunt.

Update: Burroughs is swinging now.

Update: Burroughs gets ahead 2-1. The count goes full and Sean loops a single into short leftfield. Parra stops at third, and slips as the stop sign goes up. The Diamondbacks have men on first and third with no one out.

Axford converted 43 saves in a row.

Update: Willie Bloomquist squeezes, and Axford and Prince Fielder collide. Prince can’t make the throw home, and the game is tied at two! Axford blows his first save since April. Men on first and second with no one out.

Update: Aaron Hill goes down on strikes for the first out of the inning.

Update: Justin Upton hits into a force at second for the second out.

Update: Henry Blanco grounds to short, and Yuniesky Betancourt makes the play at second, but trips over the sliding Justin Upton. He’s on the ground for a moment, but gets up and runs off the field. The Diamondbacks tie the game at two, and now need to keep the Brewers off the board in the bottom of the ninth.

July 13, 2011 September 21, 2010

Old Time Savers

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Scott Segrin passes along this information regarding save streaks:

I was fascinated by a graph you created a couple of years ago showing the percentages of short, long, and 1-inning saves over time (click graphs for a larger version).

Long and short saves
http://www.baseballmusings.com/archives/SaveLength.JPG

John Axford recently rattled off a string of five consecutive long saves. (That’s got to be incredibly rare.) He has nine on the season and is tied for the ML lead with Brian Wilson. And… Brian Wilson also leads the ML with 6 short saves. Just thought that was interesting.

By my count, the ML percentage of 1-inning saves is 82%, so it hasn’t changed much since you made the graph.

The graph shows how long saves used to be the standard, and that short saves, also used to be quite common. Managers would bring the closer when the starter got in trouble and let him finish the game. Sometimes, that was with out recorded in the ninth inning. Note that it was about the time that Tony La Russa started using Dennis Eckersley as a closer that the long save started disappearing. Managers were already abandoning the short save, but Rick Honeycutt and and Eck solidified the idea of an eighth inning setup man and ninth inning closer.

Axford has pitched well during his long save streak, and he’s been effectively wild, giving up walks instead of hits.

June 20, 2010

Evil Player

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The Evil Player program selected John Axford as Sunday’s evil player. Axford is the pitcher who dared try to replace Trevor Hoffman as the Brewers closer, cementing his place in the hall of infamy. He even managed to save all four opportunities he inherited!

Axford’s weakness as a pitcher is his high walk rate, but he’s tough to hit and gives up little power. That makes the walks a little easier to take.