Atlanta Braves Billy Wagner Likely to Get Hall Snub

Aug 30, 2014; San Diego, CA, USA; San Diego Padres ceo Ron Fowler (left) and Peter Siedler present former player Trevor Hoffman his induction plaque into the Padres Hall of Fame before the game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

According to baseball-reference.com, 18,654 baseball players have played in the major leagues (Gary Sanchez of the Yankees being the newest)… or 18,655 if you count Raul Mondesi, Jr., who qualifies as an exception to several rules.

310 people are enshrined in the Hall of Fame, this number including 28 baseball executives, 35 from the old Negro leagues, 22 managers, and 10 umpires.  That leaves roughly 215 major league ball players.

There are currently 74 pitchers in the Hall of Fame (if you count Babe Ruth).  The vast majority are starters, and only four spent their careers almost exclusively as relievers:

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• Rollie Fingers (341 saves)
• Rich Gossage (310 saves)
• Bruce Sutter (300 saves)
• Hoyt Wilhelm (228 saves)

The “hybrid” relievers in the Hall number just two:

• Dennis Eckersley (361 starts, 390 saves)
• John Smoltz (481 starts, 154 saves)

Not exactly great odds for any relief pitcher.

But that brings us to the 2016 ballot and the quandry that voters are having to deal with.  Three closers are now on the ballot, with the 800-lbs. gorilla still yet to appear (Mariano Rivera, not eligible until after the 2018 season).  They are…

• Trevor Hoffman (601 saves)
• Lee Smith (478 saves, 14th ballot appearance, 30.2% of votes last year)
• Billy Wagner (422 saves)

Timing Can Be Everything

Part of the reason there are so few relievers in the Hall, of course, is that the ‘age of specialization’ came after roughly the first 90 years of professional baseball had already been played.  The successful use of players such as Wilhelm, Fingers, and Gossage led to other teams introducing their own dedicated closers, and this next wave – Lee Smith, Hoffman, Wags, Rivera, and others are the best of this early generation of shutdown specialists.

Hall Voters early on seemed to be leery of these pitchers… and indeed, only the most elite of the group have been inducted to this point.

The question, then, is where to draw the lines… and sometimes it matters who your contemporaries are.

EXHIBIT A – TIM RAINES

No, he’s not a close – or even a pitcher – but in one key way, Tim Raines is my poster child for this problem.  Consider a player with a 23 year career, 7 All-Star nods, a lifetime .385 OBP, .284 BA, .810 OPS, nearly 1,000 RBI, over 4 walks for every 3 strikeouts, and the 5th-highest total of stolen bases ever.

Those steals look even better when you realize he was only caught stealing 146 times – nearly 85% success.

Raines’ Hall of Fame problem?  He isn’t Rickey Henderson.  Henderson had 1406 steals (though only an 80% success rate) and more homers (though only marginally better OPS of .820).  Raines hit the HOF ballot 1 year prior to Henderson, and voters knew they wanted Henderson… his SB total was so huge that is killed Raines’ chances… despite the rest of Raines’ Hall-worthy game.

Raines is now up to 55% of votes… but his 10th and last ballot appearance is next year.  It’s going to be tough for him.

NEXT EXHIBIT – BILLY WAGNER

Wags is 5th All-time in saves.  Granted, it’s still a relatively new category, but he’s going to be dissed by the voters for three reasons:

• He’s not Trevor Hoffman
• He’s not Mariano Rivera
• He has fewer saves than Lee Smith, and the voters are still dissing him.

If it weren’t for those first two names being Wagner’s contemporaries, though, Wagner might be a shoo-in:

• Best all-time strikeout rate for closers with more than 150 saves excepting Craig Kimbrel.
• 2nd all-time behind Kimbrel for LOB% among that same group
• 7th lowest blown save rate for closers with 200+ saves

Next: To Believe or Not to Believe

Maybe the voters will recognize that being in the top 5 All-time in saves is still a meaningful result. Maybe they will ignore Hoffman and Rivera (who both now have reliever awards named after them) and grade Wags strictly on his own merit.  Maybe they will start giving the elite closers their due as a positional representative in the Hall of Fame.

He’s trying – and others are helping.  Search #WagsFacts on twitter and you’ll see lots of reasons for Wagner’s enshrinement.  Hopefully voters will notice too.

But based on Lee Smith’s experience… it’s going to be a tough climb for him to avoid Raines’ experience.