Lindbergh Reference or ABA Reference?
In a surprise move Tuesday, Francisco Rodriguez and the Milwaukee Brewers agreed to continue Rodriguez's extremely strained clubhouse interaction with closer John Axford for another year, signing K-Rod—who has 291 career saves—to a one-year deal worth $8 million. The deal comes in lieu of arbitration, and—weirdly enough—involves a bunch of incentives triggered when he finishes games.
I'm not sure where the Brewers are going with this—they say they don't plan on trading him—but if I'm Axford, I'm at least a little worried about the million-dollar incentive Rodriguez has to shred my elbow ligament in the night.
Rodriguez, who's just a year older than Axford, remains—for all this set-up man derailment and decreased effectiveness—on an unprecedented pace for saves; entering his age-30 season he's 41 ahead of Rod Beck, who accrued 250 saves between 1991 and 1998 before ending his career with 286.
(In case you were wondering: Mariano Rivera had 129, Trevor Hoffman had 135, and Lee Smith had 180. These things have a way of evening out.)
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Edited by Dan Moore
Dan Moore has been writing about baseball on the internet since that was a novel thing to do. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he lives in Springfield, Illinois. See my profile
