• Ugly, ugly, ugly in Milwaukee. The combination of Francisco Rodriguez and John Axford gave up six runs between the eighth and ninth innings today (four hits, two walks, two wild pitches) to help Milwaukee blow a 5-2 lead against the Nationals. With K-Rod starting the eighth inning, signs pointed to Axford getting back into the saves mix after throwing five consecutive scoreless outings (5/2 K/BB over 5.1 innings) and he was called upon to attempt to bail out the visibly wild Rodriguez before allowing two of his inherited runners to score in addition to the three he let cross the plate in the ninth. Axford’s 3.14 xFIP paints the picture of a guy unlucky enough to have an unfathomably high 20.0 HR/FB%; although Brewers fans probably take little solace in those results. That said, his FIP (which doesn’t normalize the home run rate, so he’s penalized for all seven dingers he’s given up this season) is still 4.14, a full run lower than his 5.11 ERA. In fact, even with today’s outing, Axford still owns the lowest xFIP on the Brew Crew. Even with that knowledge, Ron Roenicke was pushing a committee as recently as a few days ago, so given today’s events, Kameron Loe (3.60 xFIP, 3.10 over the last thirty days) might be in the running to pitch the ninth while Axford and Rodriguez lick their wounds.

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• Whoa. Did Jim Johnson have a major meltdown or what? Tasked with closing out a 9-8 win at home versus the Athletics, he was rocked for six runs on five hits and a walk. Over his last eight appearences, he’s thrown 6.1 innings with a 2/2 K/BB — good for an 18.47 ERA (pushing his season mark up to 3.71 after it was as low as 0.78 last month). Johnson’s smoke and mirrors act has been mentioned in this column before, but it bears repeating that his K% is only 14.0% and his SwStr% is 6.1%, both well below league-average for late-inning relievers. Johnson’s regression has brought his ERA back in line with his xFIP (3.80) and he figures to pitch to that number going forward (not as good as he was early in the season and not as bad as the last couple weeks). He’s unlikely to be in any imminent danger of losing his job, but Pedro Strop racked up a couple saves earlier this season (and he sports the 1.40 ERA, even though his 3.80 xFIP is identical to Johnson’s) so he’s no stranger to the ninth inning at Camden. Hopefully owners were able to sell him as a top-10 closer when he was way up fantasy leaderboards in May and June.

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• Ken Rosenthal said that the Royals have made Johnathan Broxton, Jose Mijares and others available. While Broxton’s 2.34 ERA isn’t necessarily supported by his actual skill (1.71 K/BB; 4.04 xFIP), he’s still a useful reliever and there are several teams that could use an extra one of those including the Giants and Cardinals. If Broxton is traded, and he should be, look for Greg Holland to take over the closing duties for the Royals. Aaron Crow and Kelvin Herrera are other dark horses to get saves but I’m still not sure the Royals know what they want to do with Crow, and Holland has more experience than Herrera. Holland’s ERA (3.93) and WHIP (1.61) certainly don’t look too impressive, but he’s been unlucky with a .411 BABIP and his 2.80 xFIP and 13.25 K/9 illustrate the skill he has to close games for the Royals in the future.

Additionally, Rosenthal says that the Marlins will try hard to move Heath Bell. However, as noted yesterday, Bell’s contract will make any deal difficult. Still, with Cishek currently getting saves for the Marlins and Bell being aggressively shopped around the league, I wonder if Bell will receive another chance to close games to increase his value before the trading deadline.

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• Chris Perez converted his 27th save tonight against the Orioles and though he’s been having a great year for the Indians (2.95 xFIP; 27/29 on save opportunities) his days of closing for them might be coming to an end as the Giants are rumored to be interested in acquiring his services. The Giants could use some bullpen depth with Santiago Casilla in a rut, blowing five of his past nine save opportunities (although he converted the last one) and since the Giants seem to prefer to have Sergio Romo pitch in a set up role, it’s possible that if Perez is traded that he could remain closing games. However, it’s worth noting that the Indians are currently 48-48 and only four games behind the division lead, so they could still try to compete. But, with the trading deadline rapidly approaching, their next few games may determine if they choose to hold onto some of their valuable trade pieces like Chris Perez and while no trade is imminent, the Giants are looking for bullpen depth and they might turn their eyes to Perez.

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Let’s start the week with an up-and-coming young catcher and a veteran reliever hanging on by the skin of his teeth…

Salvador Perez | C | Royals | Owned: 39% Yahoo!

A trendy breakout pick for 2012, Perez’s season debut was delayed because of a knee injury. He returned to the Royals late last month and has hit .350/.373/.600 (.408 wOBA and 160 wRC+) in 83 plate appearances, building on last season’s .331/.361/.473 (.361 wOBA and 127 wRC+) performance. In a whopping 241 big league plate appearances, Perez owns a .338/.365/.518 batting line (.377 wOBA and 160 wRC+).

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• The Brett Myers trade finally went down, with Myers headed off to the South Side in exchange for a couple of minor leaguers and a player to be named later. White Sox general manager Kenny Williams clarified that Myers and his 3.83 xFIP is expected to be a setup man, not the new closer for Chicago. This comes as no surprise, as Robin Ventura has stuck with current closer Addison Reed even though he hasn’t exactly been the model of a shutdown reliever this year (four blown saves and six meltdowns). Reed possesses a solid K% (23.6%) and his 8.3% BB% isn’t awful so he should continue to grow into the position with time. Myers should only be held by owners in need of holds and is droppable in most redraft leagues.

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• Big trade in the bullpen world that became official early this morning. The Astros sent J.A. Happ, Brandon Lyon, and a minor leaguer to Toronto for Francisco Cordero, Ben Francisco, and a collection of five more players. Obviously, for this column’s sake, the two most important players in the deal are Lyon and Cordero. Lyon (4.07 xFIP) moves from an Astros bullpen where he might have been a closing option in the semi-likely event Brett Myers gets traded to a bullpen where Casey Janssen’s 2.83 xFIP and 13-for-13 conversion rate has a stranglehold on the closing job. Lyon will likely see marginally more holds for a slightly better Blue Jays team, but he’ll move into a far tougher division from an opposing hitter standpoint. Cordero is the far more intriguing piece for fantasy purposes, moving from a team where he was fully blocked from racking up saves to an Astros squad actively looking to move their current closer in Brett Myers. Cordero hasn’t pitched well this season, although a 0.366 BABIP is keeping his ERA (5.77) more than a full run higher than his xFIP (4.64). With Wilton Lopez back from the disabled list, he seems like the favorite for saves if Myers departs Houston, but, coming into the season, Cordero had saved at least 10 games every year since 2002, so even with iffy peripherals, he might get a whiff thanks to prior experience.

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With John Axford’s colossal struggles as the closer this year, which has somewhat to do with reliever volatility and somewhat to due with command issues, Francisco Rodriguez is back in ninth inning for the first time since his Mets tenure.

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• On May 3rd, Mariano Rivera tore his ACL and now he is saying that his goal is to return to pitch in September. Wow. If any 42 year old player would return that quickly from an torn ACL it would have to be Mariano Rivera but color me skeptical on his return this season. However, if he were to return that would sure cause an interesting dilemma at the back of the Yankees bullpen because Rafael Soriano has been very effective closing the door for the Yankees with Mo out. Although he’s been on the good side of some luck (0.0% HR/FB%) Soriano still has a 2.22 FIP and is 24/25 on save opportunities, converting his latest tonight against the Blue Jays. It’s hard to imagine Mo not pitching the ninth inning for the Yankees, but the chances of him returning to the mound this season are slim enough to assume Soriano will be closing games all year.

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• It’s sometimes hard to take Ozzie Guillen seriously, but when he said that the Marlins will use a closer-by-committee approach for their ninth inning duties he didn’t seem to be joking as Mike Dunn converted his first save of the year tonight. While Dunn is great against lefties (.254 wOBA against), he doesn’t fare as well against righties (.317 wOBA against) but a pairing with the righty Steve Cishek, with some platoon problems of his own, could make for an intriguing committee. Heath Bell has pitched in the eighth inning the last two nights, and although he hasn’t received a save opportunity he’s pitched two scoreless innings should be seeing the ninth inning again this season. For the time being however, the Marlins are going with a committee and look for Cishek, Dunn and Bell to get the nod depending on the matchup.

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