With the announcement of the new class of Hall of Famers coming next week, and with former Padres great Trevor Hoffman getting a lot of support on the publicly released ballots, we asked a panel of ESPN writers about closers and the Hall of Fame. Does Hoffman belong for notching 601 saves and his longevity? Or was his career simply a product of the way closers are used in the modern era? David Schoenfield, Jerry Crasnick and Bradford Doolittle all have their own points of view on these questions, so we put them together with moderator Christina Kahrl to get their takes on Hoffman's case for Cooperstown.
Christina Kahrl: We've seen just six pitchers make the Hall of Fame owing a big chunk of their cases to their careers as top relievers: Rollie Fingers, Hoyt Wilhelm, Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage, Dennis Eckersley and John Smoltz. Where do you stand on putting relievers in Cooperstown?
Jerry Crasnick: We need to be selective about closers, given the dubious nature of the save stat as the defining measure of the role. But closers are an important part of baseball, like it or not. I don't understand how people can flat out say, "I'll never vote for a closer."
Bradford Doolittle: It would be tough to have a representative Hall of Fame that ignores relief pitching completely. But this is a tricky issue that evolves by the year. Closers, as we now think of them, simply haven't been around that long. It seemed like a big deal when Fingers, Sutter and Gossage hit 300 saves, but now that's nothing. What will the benchmarks look like in 20 years? To me, we have to consider relievers, but the standard needs to be very high.
David Schoenfield: I'm generally anti-reliever. Eckersley became a Hall of Famer only after flaming out as a starter. Sutter is probably the worst selection ever by the BBWAA, a reliever who had a short run of dominance. Fingers is also a bit overrated, although he was at least a key performer on three World Series champs. That's one of the issues I have with Trevor Hoffman this year: The five relievers elected (I count Smoltz as a starter) were all closers on World Series winners, whereas Hoffman gakked it up in every big game of his career.
Crasnick: I agree that postseason performance is heightened for closers. But Hoffman threw a total of 13 postseason innings in his career. That's a pretty small sample size to label him a chronic gakker, isn't it?
Schoenfield: Sure, but you don't get large sample sizes in the postseason. You have to perform when you get those opportunities, and Hoffman blew that tiebreaker game, blew that World Series game against the Yankees. But that's only a small part of my argument against Hoffman. I have many more!
Doolittle: Hoffman's win probability added was minus-1.8 in those innings. It's a data point, but I'm not sure you can put Hoffman in or out based on that. It doesn't help his case.
Crasnick: From 1993 to 2010, Hoffman led the majors with 1,035 appearances. He was tremendously consistent over a very long period of time. Would I feel stronger about his candidacy if he came into games and recorded two- or three-inning saves the way Goose Gossage did in the old days? Sure. But that's the way the position has evolved, and he performed it extraordinarily well for a very long time. I think the anti-Hoffman crowd ignores the value of the stability he provided in San Diego over a very lengthy period.
Schoenfield: Hoffman is second all time in saves behind Mariano Rivera; that seems to be the main reason he's polling at about 73 percent so far. He was the Padres' closer from 1994 to 2008; during that time the Padres ranked fifth in the majors in saves, behind the Yankees, Angels, Red Sox and Dodgers. The Red Sox had nine closers in that time; the Dodgers had five. It's just not that difficult a position to fill.
Crasnick: If you ask people like Bruce Bochy or Joe Maddon or Jim Leyland, they'll tell you what kind of comfort level there is and what a huge impact there is on a team to have an established guy at the back end. Don't you think the Red Sox front office would rather have one guy for all those years than to have to go out every fall and find someone new? Hoffman basically lost his fastball velocity and had to reinvent himself by relying on his changeup to remain a dominant closer. I covered Rob Dibble with the Reds, and no one was more dominant over a four-, five-year period. The list of guys who can do what Hoffman did is extremely short.
Schoenfield: I think the one-inning aspect is a huge strike against voting for modern closers. I admit Hoffman was terrific in this limited role, but he didn't even reach 70 innings once in his final 10 seasons and reached 60 just twice. He was compiling saves pitching 55 innings a year. It's not that hard a role, even if you do it well. And Bochy won three World Series titles with three different closers. I would say that's an argument that stability in a closer is actually overrated -- unless that closer is Mariano Rivera.
Crasnick: Yeah, but count the number of times that closers have to warm up a year, or pitch three straight days, etc. I think the argument that any good starter could have done what Hoffman did is overly simplistic. And Bochy is the last guy you would want to ask about the importance of a closer after what happened to the Giants last season.
Doolittle: Jerry, I'm with you that longevity is an important consideration when looking at relievers, and that's Hoffman's best case. He was consistent too, with a save percentage that was just a hair's breadth below Rivera's. But we can say that about Joe Nathan as well. If we grant that Rivera is in a class by himself, I'm not sure there is much beyond the saves category to differentiate Hoffman from guys like Lee Smith and Billy Wagner.
Kahrl: To Jerry's point on longevity and Hoffman, that seems worth bringing up in light of where the polling on publicly released ballots for this year's Hall of Fame votes stands: He's north of 70 percent and might eventually get in, whereas Billy Wagner -- a closer in his prime you'd take over Hoffman, and arguably the most dominant lefty closer ever -- might struggle to stay in double digits. Are the voters too concerned with Hoffman's one big number, his saves total?
Schoenfield: I'd take Wagner over Hoffman. Better ERA (2.31 versus 2.87), more dominant (11.9 K's per nine versus 9.4), same career WAR (28.0 for Hoffman versus 27.7 for Wagner). If Wagner wasn't better than Hoffman, I'd say he was at least his equal. Other than the fact Hoffman lasted a little longer, there's no reason he's at 73 percent of the vote while Wagner is at 12 percent. Note: I'm a peak-value guy over longevity, but Hall of Fame voting historically rewards longevity over peak.
Crasnick: I agree with Dave that there's no reason for Hoffman to be polling that much better than Wagner. There's a certain cachet to having 600 saves that's probably out of proportion to the numbers behind it.
Doolittle: I don't disagree in general, but with relievers I think it takes on added importance, if only because it can be so difficult to differentiate relievers. The attrition rate is high, which should mean that the players who close for long periods of time do so for a reason. In theory.
Schoenfield: Closers are important. No doubt there. And it appears we are seeing a change in how front offices are monetarily rewarding the elite closers. But I'm still looking at value and closers generally earn 20 to 30 percent of the value of starting pitchers. I can't put Hoffman in the Hall of Fame before Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina. That's really my biggest argument of all -- Hoffman isn't one of the 10 best players on the ballot, even if we accept he's the second-best reliever of all time.
Crasnick: I'm not saying that Hoffman is a 100 percent, slam-dunk Hall of Famer. He was protected in a lot of ways in the latter stages of his career, protecting two- and three-run leads in a big ballpark in San Diego. I get that. And I understand why people think the value of 600 career saves is overstated. But I followed his career enough to think he did enough over two decades to qualify as a Hall of Famer. Maybe not this year, but in the next year or two.
I just think people who say, "I would never vote for a closer because anyone can do it," are too closed-minded on the topic. There's no one in uniform who faced Mariano Rivera who would tell you he's not a Hall of Famer. But I'm probably more charitable with my ballot than most; I picked 10 players this year, and I probably could have gone to 15.
Schoenfield: Rivera had 56.6 career WAR. He's on a completely different level even from Hoffman, and that's not even including his postseason performance. That's how good he was -- twice as great as maybe the second-best modern closer.
Doolittle: Going back to the WPA data I was looking at, Rivera had 11.7 postseason WPA. Second on list for relievers was Rollie Fingers at 2.5. Rivera's regular-season numbers put him on his own tier among relievers. The postseason numbers are just so overwhelming, and in this era, that's huge. He had a 0.70 ERA in 141 postseason innings. I don't see how someone wouldn't vote for him.
Schoenfield: Speaking of win probability added, which basically takes game leverage into account, that's a great argument for Hoffman. He's 21st among pitchers in that category (still behind Mussina and Schilling). That data is mostly complete from 1930 on, via Baseball-Reference.com. Joe Sheehan also did some great research on Hoffman and pointed out that he faced the 6-7-8-9 hitters more often in his career than 1-2-3-4-5. Seems closers end up facing the bottom of the order more often than the top of the order.
Kahrl: Maybe another way to look at closers -- or any Hall of Famer -- is this: Can you tell the story of the game in the era he played without him? Smoltz or Eck, no. Hoffman or Wagner, though? Is that fair or unfair?
Schoenfield: Even though I'm in the stat-nerd camp, I think that's an important part of the equation that should be considered. In the case of Eck, he felt like a dominant figure in the game during his peak with the A's. Hoffman? I wouldn't say he towered over the game, but I guess he was a big name for a long time.
Crasnick: Some people still think Eck wasn't a Hall of Famer. But to me, the narrative has to be part of his appeal: He was a good starter who reinvented himself as a lockdown closer for some great teams in Oakland. He and Smoltz occupy a very special niche that way. I don't think there's anything wrong with taking that narrative into account.
Doolittle: I think Eck is a deserving Hall of Famer yet I will always think of Kirk Gibson every time I read his name.
Schoenfield: This is why Schilling has to be a Hall of Famer. A great pitcher in the regular season, but his postseason narratives clearly put him over the top for me.
Doolittle: I have never in my life claimed that metrics tell the entire story about anyone or anything in sports. Subjective observations by those who spend their lives in and around the game will always be just as important. Heck, the whole reason I lean on metrics so much is that I tend to get overly emotional about these things.
Kahrl: Are there closers that you'd vote for who had that "wow" factor?
Schoenfield: Billy Wagner had that for me, more than Hoffman. But I'm also partial to short guys who throw 98 mph. But if Hoffman does get elected, at least he's not really lowering the standard for closers. And I'd rather see him get in than, say ... Bud Selig.
Doolittle: Wagner also was really good for most of his 16 years and clearly could have kept going when he quit. That's a long time. I'm not sure there are a lot of relievers with startling peaks who would get in on that basis alone.
Crasnick: I never saw a more dominant guy than Rob Dibble when he pitched for the Reds in the late '80s and early '90s, but he flamed out way too soon. Same with Eric Gagne. It's hard to do it for a long time, given the reliance on high-octane velocity as a rule. That helps Hoffman's case, in my view.
Kahrl: Lee Smith is about to exit the ballot. It seems interesting that he hasn't gotten much mention here, as the last of the old-style closers who then got a lot of saves on the back slope of his career as the usage patterns changed. Why no love for Lee Smith? Did his stats get buried among voters because his career is split between two eras?
Crasnick: I voted for Lee Smith for at least a couple of years, but he ultimately fell victim to the Rule of 10. I'm a big Lee Smith fan; he was a real character along with being a terrific closer for a lot of years. Maybe he gets a second look through the Veterans Committee once he drops off the ballot.
Schoenfield: He probably gets in eventually via the Veterans Committee. Not a lot to separate him and Hoffman, once you factor in that Smith bridged the eras between the 1980s closer to the modern closer. And he's still third all time in saves.
Doolittle: For me, Smith has nearly as good a case as Hoffman, but again, I'm not convinced that if he gets in now it won't look like a weak selection 10 years from now. I just don't think we're at the point where we really know what the standard should be for a Hall of Fame reliever. Besides Mariano Rivera.
Kahrl: Is that fair, that it's Mariano and nobody else? Would we think about any other position in that way?
Schoenfield: Well, Mariano is the one reliever whose career value matched that of other Hall of Fame-caliber position players and relievers. Plus his postseason. So, yes, I actually wouldn't have any issues if he's the only modern closer who gets elected.
Doolittle: Given how new the current closer model is, and the rate of attrition for the role, I don't think it's strange that we tread lightly around the cases of everyone but Mo. But that doesn't mean it'll always be that way. There are more dominant relievers than ever. Teams are smarter than ever at managing workloads, and sports medicine is always getting better. Teams are more proactive about identifying closers early and developing them that way. There will be other no-brainer Hall of Fame relievers. Some of them are probably in the game now. I could see Jansen staying dominant for a long time to come.
Crasnick: Mariano's numbers make him the gold standard. But Craig Kimbrel, Aroldis Chapman, Zach Britton and some of the other current guys are putting up incredible numbers. The ultimate litmus test is going to be how long they can sustain it. It's going to be tough for all these guys to make it to Cooperstown. Maybe the role will continue to evolve after the innovative way the Indians used Andrew Miller, and voters will have a new way of evaluating "super relievers'' in four or five years. I think as voters we all just need to keep an open mind about it.