Second Opinion Player-Profile Game: Question #1

Play the player-profile game again on Thursday and Friday of this week at 11:30am ET. Each day, we’re giving away a free copy of the 2012 Second Opinion to the first reader who guesses correctly the identity of that day’s mystery player. (Limit one copy per customer).

Next Monday (or so says my colleague Eno Sarris), FanGraphs will release the third annual edition its very useful and even more affordable fantasy companion, The Second Opinion. Thanks to the vision of Mr. Sarris, along with the hard work of many of FanGraphs’ own contributors, this year’s edition promises to build upon last season’s sophomore effort, while still maintaining the white-hot analysis that is FanGraphs’ trademark.

We will have more details on the guide very shortly. In the meantime, however, it makes sense to offer some previews of what readers can expect from this year’s Second Opinion. These peeks promise to be especially sneaky as they’ll come in the form of the player-profile game I intoduced in these pages not so long ago.

The game is easy: one person (me, in this case) offers the text of single player profile, being careful to omit any proper names that might reveal the identity of the player in question. The other person (you, the reader) attempts to identify the player using only the details provided in the profile.

For the first reader who guesses correctly (in the comments section below), we offer you, if you can even believe it, a free copy of this year’s Second Opinion — approximately a $1000 value!

Today’s entry comes to us courtesy the unbearably handsome Mike Axisa.

Who is it?

Arguably the best non-closing reliever in baseball over the last three or four seasons, [BLANK] somewhat predictably saw his home-run rate spike (from 0.38 HR/9 to 1.05 HR/9) following his trade from the [BLANKs] to the [BLANKs]. He remains a dominant high-strikeout (9.00 per nine in four straight years), low-WHIP (sub-1.10 in four straight years), low-ERA (sub-1.80 in three straight years) setup man that’s a must-own in holds leagues, and it won’t take much for him to see some save opportunities with [BLANK] moving to the rotation and the aging [BLANK] set for ninth-inning duties. The homers could push his ERA closer to 2.00 than we’re used to seeing, but it’s a small price to pay for an elite holds reliever.