The Baseball Hall of Fame requirements perplex me. That’s kind of an evergreen statement, but I guess my gripe is with the Baseball Writers Association of America who votes on the hallowed halls.
So riddle me this, the only unanimous Hall of Famer ever was a closer. Mariano Rivera. Not Babe Ruth, not Willie Mays, not Ken Griffey Jr. A closer, a guy who threw one inning at a time. I mean I guess that’s ok, because Rivera is the best all-time.
But why do we continue to hurt guys like Billy Wagner and Francisco Rodriguez? Because they didn’t pitch for New York? These guys were next best in their era only behind Rivera. You can stack a lot of numbers from both of these pitchers that are better than Rivera.
Wagner had the best strikeout rate all time. Rodriguez set the record for most saves in a season back in 2008. If you didn’t have Rivera, you wanted these guys.
I mean not knocking these Hall of Famers, but Bruce Sutter, Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers, and Dennis Eckersley all had fewer saves and a lot of other key numbers worse than Wagner and K-Rod. What are we waiting for?
