true or false baseball challop: not a single one of the modern day closers belongs in the Hall of Fame

how do you exclude hoffman and not rivera? just on the postseason?

Mostly. But Rivera also pitched consistently better in a consistently tougher environment.

i guess i'm just uncomfortable with a slope slippery enough to one day lead down to a muddy pond named "hall of famer jonathan papelbon"

I mean Trevor Hoffmann is a good pitcher, but he's pitched 50% of his games in basically the pitching equivalent of Coors field.

the top ten most similar pitchers to rivera according to baseball reference:

1. Trevor Hoffman (900)
2. Jeff Reardon (865)
3. Bruce Sutter (865) *
4. Lee Smith (859)
5. Billy Wagner (859)
6. Doug Jones (854)
7. John Wetteland (841)
8. Tom Henke (838)
9. Robb Nen (829)
10. Roberto Hernandez (828)

smoltz is the only clsoer who should be in the hqall

not sure rivera's opportunities to go to the postseason should prop him up. guess i also see a smaller gulf between hoffman and rivera and a bigger one between those two guys and everyone else.

No it's still a pretty big gulf between those two guys. And what Rivera's done in the post-season (opportunities aside) is so incredibly historic that to not count it all would be silly.

i think smoltz probably should get into the hall even if you take away his relief stats (also i think during those 3 1/2 relief seasons he would have been a pretty awesome starter)

Yeah if he could stayed healthy those 3.5 seasons.

but was he so injured during that time that he couldn't start? i feel like i remember him bitching about staying in at closer, despite his total effectiveness. i feel like he really put the pressure on w/r/t issue which is why atlanta finally relented, though everyone thought he was done as a starter (i may recall a morbs post speculating on 100 innings max.)

I'm just saying it's not a given that he would have produced at an awesome starter level for those years.

maybe not, but i guess i think he would have been good for about what he did from '05-'07, with maybe fewer innings as they were easing him back into the role in '05. not a given, as you said, but i think he would have been more valuable to the braves in that fashion...

Maybe it's just that I watched Hoffman fail more often than a non-Padres fan would have, but I never really felt like he was a shutdown guy. He never seemed dominant in big games, and failed on the big stage with some regularity. He was consistent, and hard to hit when his change-up was it its best, but was he a better closer than, say, Papelbon? I'm not sure.

Rivera, on the other hand, seems like a given, if you are allowing relievers in the Hall of Fame at all.

I'll stay happy as long as John Franco never gets in.

poly, I don't think Hoffman ever lost a game to Omir Santos. (c'mon, Papelbon is just getting started -- see Bill James on Peak vs Career)

i'm not totally sure what "the big stage" is in baseball--hoffman has what like 10 career playoff innings?

given that success over time is basically how you get in the hof marking someone up or down for a tiny sample of playoff innings is retarded.

lol it also might get jack morris into the hall some day (i hope it never comes tbqh) ;_;

false in my opinion. the role of the closer has changed over the years and modern closers have shaped the role in a way that's entertaining, creative and interesting. how much or how little a guy pitches, or whether he'd be good in another pitching role, isn't as interesting to me as how a guy plays his position, and modern closers have carved out their own position.

J0hn HATES BIG SAMPLE SIZES

Funny how we're still not gonna put Jack Morris in the HOF for postseason starts, nor was Willie Mays kept out for kinda sucking in the World Series.

xxp

Rivera has logged an awful lot of October innings that mirror his regular-season performance.

Morbs are the pre-modern closers way higher on K/IP? real question, I honestly have no idea

and honestly my favorite closer of all time was just a terrible pitcher so I should probably just suggest band myself now

well, the pre-moderns were "aces" not closers (ie, they didn't always finish) and it depends which ones.

this is why I like modern closers! I like anybody who carves out a niche for themselves!

do you think there should be hall of fame long-snappers too?

most of my grandchildren's inheritance is presently tied up in the long-snappers hall of fame steering committee fund

"given that success over time is basically how you get in the hof marking someone up or down for a tiny sample of playoff innings is retarded."

I agree about small samples, yes, but 117 innings is not really a small sample and Rivera's #s are bonkers.

i guess that was disingenuous of me (lol) - what about kickers/punters though? i think it's pretty analogous

And as I said before Rivera is just flat out better than Hoffman is. Post-season, regular season, hell probably even spring training, the guy has put up better #s against better competition in a less hospitable ballpark.

kickers should totally be hof candidates!

That Ray Guy isn't in the football HOF is pretty silly actually.

there's a pretty good argument to be made that ray guy just wasn't good enough compared to his peers, but then again the football hof's standards are really bizarre and probably too high.

Is there? I'll admit that being in SF and listening to Madden probably biases me on that one, but I thought most people agreed he was the best punter of his era.

c/o dr z:

I'll trot out the usual arguments. More than half of today's punters have higher lifetime averages. His net was poor because he'd hit the middle of the end zone, rather than the coffin corner (Peter King once did a work-up on his net average, and it stunk). What he's got going for him was that he once hit that freakin' gondola about 15 miles in the air, plus John Madden sings his praises every five minutes. And I guess that's enough for some of the airheads who cast votes.

dr. z is obsessed with punting likes to assert that tommy davis was the greatest ever:

I first became fascinated with the punting game, and especially hang time, 46 years ago. I was working at my first newspaper job, on the Sacramento Bee, and every Sunday we used to go up to Kezar Stadium to root for the 49ers. We'd sit in the East end zone and take our shirts off, drink beer and cheer our heads off. And watch Tommy Davis, the greatest punter in history, although we didn't know it at the time, booting high hangers out of the worst end zone in the league.
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The murderous Kezar winds blew eastward, in from the ocean. When the Niners were backed up, Davis would be standing in his own end zone, buffeted by those Pacific gusts, sometimes without the full 15-yard distance from the center. And he'd send out 45 and 50-yard rockets. Never have I heard a punter cheered as loudly as Davis was. I had heard the expression "hang time," and I figured, why not see what Davis was hitting, especially since I had such a good, close-up view, when he was kicking them out of the end zone.

Well, he hit a lot of 4.6's and 4.8's, into that wind, a truly outstanding achievement. He did it for 11 years and ran up the third-best gross average in history, behind the Raiders' Shane Lechler and Hall of Fame QB Sammy Baugh, whose numbers were padded by third-down quick kicks, when the ball would roll forever. No one, though, had to face the conditions Davis did. I have mentioned him, from time to time, for Hall of Fame consideration. Blank looks all around.

Ray Guy.

His name comes up every year, courtesy of Frank Cooney of San Francisco, and I'm placed in the unfortunate position of having to speak against him. Fourteen of today's punters have better lifetime averages. And gross average was Guy's forte, because he was a middle-of-the-end zone punter, and touchbacks kill the net. Even his contemporary for a while, Jerrel Wilson, had a better lifetime average, and he led the league four times to Guy's three.

and

On to the Hall of Fame. "You, sir, are a moron," writes William of Franklin, Ind., which immediately gets my attention. The fact is beyond dispute, your grace, but kindly tell me in which way my moronity manifests itself. "Ray Guy was and is the greatest punter I've ever seen," writes our e-mailer, and then he points out that I went on record in opposition to his enshrinement. Oh, he could boom 'em. I'd say Ray Guy, Reggie Roby, Tommy Davis, the Chargers' current big leg, Mike Scifres and Horace Gillom of the old Browns hit more five-second hang time efforts than any punters I've ever seen, or clocked, for that matter, since I've been timing 'em for about 50 years.

Please answer this one for me, sir: How come Guy's lifetime average of 42.4 is below the career averages of more than half of today's punters? Because he was inconsistent, that's why. And he wasn't a coffin-corner punter, either. He put 'em in the middle of the end zone, which was why his net average was so low.

plus

But once again, for the umpteenth time, Ray Guy appears on the Hall of Fame ballot. His lifetime gross average was an unimpressive 42.4. I got a letter on his behalf from some lobbying agency that tried to cover this number by explaining that he made up for it by pinning the enemy deep with coffin-corner kicks. This is a flat out lie written by someone who probably spells football with a pf. Guy's big weakness was that he didn't go for the edges. He was a middle of the end zone punter, although he had the livest leg in the game and when he caught one it really hung.

At one of our Hall of Fame selectors meetings, Peter King, who had meticulously gone through years of play-by-play sheets, presented the research he had done on what Guy's net would have been, had it been kept in those days. It was in the low 30, mediocre indeed. But every time you get John Madden talking about Guy, whom he had coached in Oakland, he'd mention his hang time, "regularly in the high-5.0 range, sometimes as high as six seconds."

This is, of course, nonsense. Never in history has there been a six-second hanger.

why the fuck are you talkin bout that evil 'roided up sport heah?

id support feagles for the HOF, though i dont know how his kicking comp stats are (and dont care really)

This nerd sez Dr Z is wrong:

http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/statistics-leave-no-doubt-ray-guy-should-be-in-the-hall/

this thread is like punching yourself in the nuts
do you guys even party?

Hay Guyz!
http://usss.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/gagne.jpg

great thread idea, no offense intended.

just that while you can dismiss closers as a flawed application of a specialist role, it's a bit of a challop to dismiss those who have been masterful in that role. mimes are sham douchebags, but that doesn't mean marcel marceau wasn't a fucking genius.

Rivera HOF = are really discussing this in 2009? really? first vote.
Hoffman HOF = durability will get him in, absolutely deserved
Papelbon HOF = whisper campaigns shouldn't happen until a ten year anniversary of dominance. its too easy to regress, fall apart, see above image

Found this a pretty interesting attempt to answer a question most people have abandoned.

http://www.billjamesonline.com/relief_pitchers_and_the_hall/

Adding the two metrics together puts way too much emphasis on peak value. Multiplying them would be better. Still an interesting column though.

I definitely like the way the list reconfigures when you multiply:

                     WAR/200   IP/200   RP Score                
Mariano Rivera         6.4       6.2      39.7
Goose Gossage          3.7       7.9      29.2
Trevor Hoffman         4.8       5.4      25.9
Rollie Fingers         3.3       7.8      25.7
Lee Smith              4.1       6.3      25.8
Dan Quisenberry        5.2       4.8      25.0
Billy Wagner           5.4       4.5      24.3
Doug Jones             4.0       5.5      22.0
Dennis Eckersley       5.1       4.0      20.4
Lindy McDaniel         2.2       9.0      19.8
Hoyt Wilhelm           2.1       9.2      19.3
Bruce Sutter           3.7       5.2      19.2
Jonathan Papelbon      5.5       3.4      18.7
Kent Tekulve           2.0       7.2      14.6
Gene Garber            1.9       7.5      14.3
Sparky Lyle            2.1       7.0      14.2
Tug McGraw             2.0       7.0      14.0

Other than Eckersley seeming a little low (and maybe Wilhelm too), I like those groupings. 1) Greatest ever, HOF clearly; 2) second greatest ever, HOF yes; 3) next greatest, borderline HOF; 4) stars; 5) some guys from the '70s who are extremely similar.

Yeah, I like that. Best of all it gets rid of the newer guys who have impressive WAR/200 thanks to their inflated K/9 rates. When they've put up another five or six good seasons maybe they can re-enter the discussion.

Here's my thought and forgive me if this stuff is obvious. Multiplying two stats together to obtain a different number makes sense when there's a compelling case to be made for why an even distribution of the numbers between the two stats is preferable to a player who has a higher number in one stat or the other.

Like let's say you compare hitters based on how many doubles and home runs they have. If there's a player that has five doubles and five home runs, when I multiply those two numbers together, I get 25. But if there's a player with eight home runs and two doubles, which is actually preferable because it's more total bases, and I multiply those two numbers together, I only get 16.

I don't know what the compelling case would be for why an even distribution of numbers among the two stats above is preferable.

Clem, I think you've made the case that multiplying OBP and SLG is preferable to adding them and getting an OPS number? If OBP is more important than SLG (which is another argument I've seen people make though I haven't wrapped my head around it), I'm not sure why multiplying those two numbers would be a good strategy either.

OBP > SLG is the root hypothetical that drove early (and current, I suppose...) sabrmetrics.

Never make an out (reflected in OBP) then you will score infinite runs.

Yeah--not making outs is of paramount importance. (I think some of those early axioms were tested by running, say, 1,000 game simulations--I'm sure James and the rest found that a high team OBP generated more runs than a proportionally high team SLG).

As for the relief pitchers, I think NoTime's idea in multiplying the two numbers was that simply adding them gave too much credit to guys like Kimbrel and Chapman who've been awesome but for only a short period of time (a common thing with closers). Someone in the comments section of the Fleming piece suggests using a harmonized mean, which produces this list:

Mariano Rivera - 12.5
Trevor Hoffman - 10.2
Rich Gossage - 10.0
Lee Smith - 9.9
Billy Wagner - 9.8
Rollie Fingers - 9.3
Doug Jones - 9.2
Tom Henke - 9.0
Dennis Eckersley - 9.0
Joe Nathan - 8.6
Bruce Sutter - 8.6
Jonathan Papelbon - 8.4
Robb Nen - 8.3
Francisco Rodriguez - 8.1
Dan Plesac - 7.9

(Fleming says Henke was accidentally dropped from his initial addition-based list.) That might be the best one of all, I don't know. Anyway, even Fleming says in the piece that it's a complete junk stat. The interesting thing is how closely his junk stat mirrors our general perceptions about who the best closers are.

people voting for Smith, Hoffman and even Wagner while saying Mussina "didn't seem like a #1" just make me smdh

I don't know what the compelling case would be for why an even distribution of numbers among the two stats above is preferable.

There isn't one, I guess. Like others have said (including the writer), it's a junk stat. But at the same time, adding the numbers (i.e. giving equal weight to both columns) looked more incorrect to me than multiplication. At least when you multiply you give serious weight to longevity.

Neither column really addresses the supposed job of closer. It is better to pitch more innings and pitch well, or to pitch fewer innings and be dominant? Should we look at WAR or give more weight to situational stats? This goes for HOF voting and for picking a real life relief corps. I don't think anybody really knows.

One thing is for sure: saves are a junk stat too.

Jeff: I don’t understand the love for Hoffman and not for Edgar Martinez. How can you bash a guy for not playing defense but applaud a guy for only pitching one inning?

Klaw: Because otherwise rational writers and fans remain obsessed with the save statistic.

Long piece by Daniel Marks on left-handed relievers, with a ranking of the 20 best:

http://www.billjamesonline.com/portsiders_in_the_pen/

Top three: Wagner, Chapman, McGraw.

rip rod scurry

No recollection of this, but pretty great:

In 2013 the Twins gave Mariano Rivera a rocking chair made entirely of bats he has broken 😂 pic.twitter.com/EFjI0N5lcv

— The Game Day MLB (@TheGameDayMLB) January 7, 2023

lol I do remember that

to answer the question I say false, while I agree that even the best closers probably didn't notch that many actual wins over the course of their careers I also think lockdown closers are great for the emotional state of the fans and having this weird specialized role is probably nice for a sport with as little personality as baseball. also managers seem to be realizing more and more these days that you can use these guys for multiple innings or to get your way out of jams which I think does increase their value. mostly I just like having niche dudes in the HoF. same reason I think the very best punters should be in the football one.

It's weird, because two things are happening simultaneously: 1) bullpens become more crucial, in how a staff is assembled and how many innings they eat up; 2) the idea that closers shouldn't be in the HOF unless they meet the (impossibly high) Rivera bar is gradually taking hold. Those two things aren't exactly incompatible--the first has to do with the whole bullpen, and Wagner's doing well right now; close to the Rivera bar seems to be okay--but they seem to diverge.

The dominant closers of these era seem also maybe more short-lived and prone to meltdowns or completely lost seasons, and imo those lost seasons are ones which linger in the mind for closers more than starters.

Also should be noted that frequently the sole qualifying factor differentiating closers from other relief pitchers when it comes to HOF discussion is the save stat, closers get more usage sometimes but still…

I'm sure Rivera's post-season dominance figured into much of his unanimous support, and that's partly--the getting-there--out of a player's control.

I’ve said it before but for me as a Cubs fan I don’t remember aroldis chapman’s dominant half season w chicago but the times he needed to be bailed out in the postseason (including game 7 of the WS.)

yeah they're like field goal kickers, where they make 30 in a row and you don't even notice, meanwhile the one they missed in a 4th quarter tie game lingers in your mind forever. I guess as Omar alludes to the real problem is being a closer nowadays generally means throwing 98+ MPH and just by the nature of the human body it's kind of impossible to do that long enough to put together a HOF career

idk but I think Hoffman, while basically half as good as Rivera, never had a dramatic meltdown or bad season. Wagner I think had one mediocre injury-crippled year. Kimbrel and Chapman, obv dominant guys, have had meltdowns and lost years. Hader now too.

Wagner has a very dicey post-season record to contend with. This came up before on another thread somewhere. It's not quite as bad as it looks (with an ERA over 10.00, it couldn't possibly be)--it's like 9 good outings and 5 poor-awful games--and it doesn't seem to be hurting him in the voting right now.

I think 300 saves was viewed as a level of excellence during the 80's and 90's, when closers won multiple CY's and MVP awards. Then 300 saves became too routine and everyone knew that Todd Jones and Roberto Hernandez weren't HOFers, so the bar was raised to the Hoffman/Rivera level. Now, that bar is coming down again because the careers of elite relievers (not just closers) are getting shorter. That favors someone like Wagner, whose career is looking better in comparison with today's best closers.

saves are meaningless but the most dominant relief pitchers should be in the HOF, sure. being lights-out over hundreds of appearances is notable even if it's not as much WAR as starters can rack up

I think it’s insane the bWAR that Rivera put up, considering everything. He was just so good.

I think the closer thing is weird for the HOF, it really is strictly almost a reputation thing built on not having large type bad moments. Wagner really was extremely dominant (in the regular season.) I think he was lucky that no one is much interested in litigating his postseason, or the games weren’t big-stage, or they view the sample size as too inconsequential to matter.

my conception of the hall remains old-fashioned and I don’t think any closers (except rivera) belong, but if you think of the hall as a museum and take frogbs’s point that their role has a special place in fans’ experience of the game, I don’t see why you wouldn’t just open the floodgates. could do the same someday with openers, mop-up relievers, third base coaches, etc, all of these people provide value to the team, though imo like closers have assumed their role because the people who run the teams have decided they aren’t capable of more

I mean the value any future or recent HOF closer gives a team (except Rivera, which should be the two words used in every post!) is far less than someone like idk Ian Kinsler gave his teams. Or John Lackey. Or Ray Durham. Closers just have the incredible stagecraft and Big Moment thing.

James got a question today about how qualified he thinks Wagner and Rodriguez are for the HOF:

Billy Wagner had a great career, and I'd consider that. But we're electing WAY too many relievers to the Hall of Fame, for this reason. The way that the process works (and has always worked) is that if a player meets or exceeds the standards of others at the position who have been selected, then that player is essentially considered eligible. But that process went awry in regard to relievers because the standards were evolving very rapidly, so that 10 years after Rollie Fingers was selected...and I still don't think that Fingers was deserving of Hall of Fame recognition...but ten years after he was selected, there were a large number of relievers who had run past some or many of the standards that he had established. In essence, the process of evaluation by standards does not work in a place where the standards are changing rapidly.

could do the same someday with openers, mop-up relievers, third base coaches, etc, all of these people provide value to the team, though imo like closers have assumed their role because the people who run the teams have decided they aren’t capable of more

isn't it more because their throwing style only allows them to throw 20-25 pitches before their efficiency goes down and their risk of injury goes up? the guys who can't hack it as starters usually become middle relievers, not closers

stamima is one thing. but a lot of guys in relief are there because they didn't have enough pitches in their repertoire. one or two kinds of pitches is enough for a closer or middle relief, but it usually doesn't cut it as a starting pitcher because big league hitters are able to adapt and are ready for it by the second time through the batting order

there are only 5 relievers in the top 50 in salary among all pitchers. teams know what value they bring and by and large pay accordingly

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/rankings/salary/pitching/

Some of the deals given relievers in years past had paid them like they were game changers rather than merely guys whose job it was to preserve a lead of three runs or less and really not to fuck it up for everyone else. Mowing down 3 or 4 batters every 3 games is not a 100 million contract job.

God, some of the names in the first third of that list: Strasburg, Sale, Bumgarner, Ryu. I totally get why two or three of them landed huge contracts at the time, but pitchers sure are risky. (I.e., the two #1s?)

i mean...Stroman. i guess i knew the Cubs gave him that much but when you see him listed there it reminds me of the time the Cubs turned their backs on Greg Maddux and chose Jose Guzman.

pitchers will break your heart. alex reyes broke my heart. </3

did we ever have a thread called Stroman or Astroman?

I watched that walk-off by the Mariners last night (they looked like they were going to do a Jays thing, not score after loading the bases with none out). God, Aroldis Chapman looked terrible. He didn't give up the walk-off, but he's the one who loaded the bases before getting pulled. Along with all other considerable baggage he carries, I wonder how long teams will keep bringing him aboard.

Couldn’t be happier for his failure ❤️

You know who’s been an elite reliever this year? Chris Martin! Mostly a setup/8th guy but has closed when Kenley was on the IL.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/m/martich02.shtml

Kenley hasn’t been lights out or anything - but still decent enough that he could get his 30th save before seasons end. All time, he’s two saves away from Wagner, 4 from Franco and 17 from K-rod.

Kenley isn’t going to play again this season

I thought he was off the dl

If i was a rostered pitcher w an established baseline i wouldnt want to pitch once i was eliminated from PO contention

Cora said he didn’t use Kenley because he hasn’t pitched in 17 days and didn’t want to risk his health

— Rob Bradford (@bradfo) September 30, 2023

Huh

Yeah he had covid and took a while to come back. He pitches terribly on long rest (at least this season?)

God, Aroldis Chapman looked terrible. He didn't give up the walk-off, but he's the one who loaded the bases before getting pulled. Along with all other considerable baggage he carries, I wonder how long teams will keep bringing him aboard.

I’ve said it before but for me as a Cubs fan I don’t remember aroldis chapman’s dominant half season w chicago but the times he needed to be bailed out in the postseason (including game 7 of the WS.)

― omar little, Sunday, January 8, 2023 9:47 AM (eight months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Jansen had COVID and has a history of heart problems, I wouldn't be in any rush to bring him back either.