You may know John Axford as Major League Baseballs facial hair MVP, but the Oakland As reliever may also be baseballs biggest movie buff one who earned his bachelors degree in film at Notre Dame and even presented a documentary at the Hamilton Film Festival in November of 2015.
Axford also puts his expertise to good use whenever its awards season, too: Hes been sharing his Oscars predictions with the world since 2013, when he went 14-for-15, then followed that up with a perfect 18-for-18 in 2014. Last year, he tried his hand at predicting the winners in every category, and finished a respectable 17-for-24. So he was back at it again for this years show and he went 17-for-24 yet again.
The Ax Man got a number of the big categories correct, such as Leonardo DiCaprio winning Best Actor (and not in the form of a lifetime achievement award, he wants you to know) and Alejandro G. Inarritu taking home his second Best Director award. Among the ones he missed, a couple were toss-ups Best Live Action Short and Best Documentary Short while the others were somewhat surprising, like Sylvester Stallone not taking home Best Supporting Actor for his work in Creed.
Wellthat was anticlimactic Same score as last year. 17/24 #Oscars
John Axford (@JohnAxford) February 29, 2016
Even so, Axford wasnt thrilled with the result. After expanding his picks last year, he considered this to be his bounceback season, so you can imagine his disappointment by finishing with the same score. However, hes 66-for-81 over the last four years with his Oscars picks, meaning hes been right 81.5 percent of the time according to SB Nation. Thats the equivalent of finishing the baseball season with a record of 132-30.
Seeing as that would be the best record in MLB history, maybe Axford should cut himself some more slack.