Baseball Hall of Fame: Does Trevor Hoffman belong?

One of the more difficult questions when it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame is the bar for entry for closers.

When it comes to the Baseball Hall of Fame, the most difficult position for me to judge is the closer. Actually, closer isn’t even a position; it’s just the name for the pitcher who pitches the late innings and picks up the save. It’s not a position; it’s a role. This role, the way we know it today, didn’t even exist in baseball until more than a century after the first professional game was played.

For most of the history of baseball, starting pitchers were expected to not only start the game but to finish the game as well. If the starter got knocked out, a lesser pitcher would come in to finish it off. There were a few exceptions along the way. One example is Firpo Marberry, who led the league in saves six times from 1924 to 1932, but no one knew it at the time because the save was not yet a statistic.

There were other pitchers who became known for pitching predominantly in relief since the days of Marberry, but they were a rarity. Jim Konstanty was the NL MVP as a relief pitcher in 1950. He was 16-7 and pitched 152 innings in 74 games that year. Roy Face famously went 18-1 for the Pirates in 1959. He pitched 93.3 innings in 57 appearances. These guys may have been the key men in the bullpen, but they weren’t used like current closers, so it’s hard to consider them comparables.

It wasn’t until 1969 that the save became an official MLB statistic, and it was another two decades before closers started to be used the way they’re used today. With the newness of the role and the changing way in which closers have been used over the years, it’s become very difficult to determine which closers deserve to be in the Hall of Fame. This can be seen by a taking a closer look at the current six relievers in the Hall of Fame.

The Current Ballot

There are four closers on this year’s Baseball Hall of Fame ballot: Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner, Jason Isringhausen and Brad Lidge. Kerry Wood is also on the ballot, but he was only a closer for a couple of seasons. Let’s look at the statistics for these four closers. The Wins Above Replacement shown below is from Baseball-Reference. The statistic ERA+ shows how much better that pitcher was in ERA compared to league average. For example, Trevor Hoffman’s ERA+ of 141 means he was 41 percent better than league average.

• 1089.3 IP, 601 SV, 2.87 ERA, 141 ERA+, 28.0 WAR—Trevor Hoffman
• 903.0 IP, 422 SV, 2.31 ERA, 187 ERA+, 27.7 WAR—Billy Wagner
• 1007.7 IP, 300 SV, 3.64 ERA, 115 ERA+, 12.2 WAR—Jason Isringhausen
• 603.3 IP, 225 SV, 3.54 ERA, 122 ERA+, 7.8 WAR—Brad Lidge

Neither Isringhausen nor Lidge has received a Baseball Hall of Fame vote. This is appropriate because neither deserves a vote. They were fine pitchers who had some good moments in their careers but are not worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame. What about Hoffman and Wagner?

Based on Baseball-Reference WAR, Hoffman and Wagner were nearly equal in value over their respective careers. Hoffman racked up more saves, but that has more to do with opportunity than anything. Hoffman also pitched about three seasons worth of innings more than Wagner, but Wagner was better at preventing runs by a significant margin.

This is important to note when it comes to these two pitchers. Hoffman pitched 1089.3 innings with an ERA of 2.87. Wagner pitched 903 innings with an ERA of 2.31. If Wagner had stuck around for three more seasons, he could have had an ERA of 5.56 in 186.3 innings and ended up with the same innings pitched and ERA as Hoffman.

In his final season, Wagner pitched 69.3 innings with a 1.43 ERA. He retired while still one of the best relievers in baseball (104 strikeouts in those 69.3 innings). Yet, he could have added three terrible seasons and ended up with the same run prevention numbers as Hoffman. That’s how much better he was at preventing runs.

Despite this fact, Hoffman currently leads Wagner in the publicly-released Hall of Fame ballots, 78.2 percent to 10.7 percent. This makes no sense at all. If a closer is worthy of the Hall of Fame, I don’t see how you can put Hoffman in and leave Wagner out. There’s not enough separating them to justify the discrepancy we see in their vote totals. This would be like putting the right Twix in the Candy Hall of Fame but leaving the left Twix out.

The real question for me is: do either Hoffman or Wagner belong in the Hall of Fame? Again, I go back to the idea that closer isn’t a position, it’s a role. The position is a pitcher. I prefer to compare relievers to all pitchers, which sets the bar for entry into the Hall of Fame much higher.

If you consider te closer not as a closer specifically but just as a pitcher in general, then it becomes a real question whether any closer is worthy of the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is particularly true for modern closers who generally only pitch around 60-65 innings each season, but it’s also true for a few of the six closers who are in the Hall of Fame already.

Rollie Fingers was worth 25.0 WAR, which ranks him tied for 385^th among all pitchers. He’s right there with Kelvim Escobar and Ron Reed. Bruce Sutter was worth 24.5 WAR, which ranks him tied for 405^th. That’s below Chris Bosio. Goose Gossage was worth 41.8 WAR, which puts him tied for 161^st. That’s below knuckleballer Tom Candiotti.

When compared to all pitchers, Fingers, Sutter, and Gossage just don’t make the cut. They don’t come particularly close, actually. None of the three pitched 2000 innings in their careers, which makes it difficult to compete with starting pitchers who threw more than 3000 innings.

Hoyt Wilhelm had more innings than the aforementioned three and finished higher on the all-time list of pitching WAR. He was worth 50.1 WAR, which ranks him 104^th among all pitchers. He’s just behind Mark Langston (50.3 WAR) and Jamie Moyer (50.1 WAR) and just ahead of Roy Oswalt (49.9 WAR). Langston, Moyer, and Oswalt were good pitchers for many years, but are they Hall of Fame pitchers? Nope, although two people did vote for Jamie Moyer this year (so far).

The two current Hall of Fame closers who have much better Hall of Fame resumes are Dennis Eckersley (62.5 WAR, tied for 46^th among all pitchers) and John Smoltz (66.5 WAR, 39^th). They were both starters for many years, and both pitched more than 3000 innings. In between them on the pitcher WAR leaderboard is Hall of Famer Bob Feller. Both Eckersley and Smoltz had more WAR than Hall of Famers Dazzy Vance, Juan Marichal, and Don Drysdale, among others. All of those innings make a difference.

When considering Baseball Hall of Fame worthiness with this method, Hoffman and Wagner don’t make the cut. They simply didn’t pitch enough innings. They are down there with Fingers and Sutter. Hoffman had 28.0 WAR, which is 317^th among all pitchers. Wagner, at 27.7 WAR, ranks tied for 325^th.

You might be wondering about Mariano Rivera, acknowledged as the most celebrated reliever of them all. Mariano was worth 56.6 WAR, which ranks him 76^th among all pitchers. That puts him in the mix with a group of starting pitchers that fall on both sides of the Hall of Fame line. Pitchers in the vicinity of Rivera who are in the Hall of Fame include Three Finger Brown, Whitey Ford, and Sandy Koufax. Pitchers who are in the vicinity of Rivera who are not in the Hall of Fame include Kevin Appier, Tim Hudson, and Dave Stieb.

Of course, plenty of people aren’t on board with WAR, so let’s set it aside for now and consider a different approach.

A Practical Approach

Tom Tango is a baseball analyst who often comes up with interesting ways to look at baseball questions. He recently posted a poll on Twitter asking the question: “Would you ever trade away Mike Mussina to get Trevor Hoffman?”

Tango’s question gets right to the heart of the issue. If you had Mussina and all the value he provided in his career, would you trade that for Hoffman’s career? Just five percent of respondents said yes. The overwhelming response was no (87 percent responded no, with eight percent choosing not to answer but still interested in the results). Tango followed up the post with this comment: “Sometimes, when it comes to subjective questions, there’s only one right answer. And this is one of those times.”

He’s right, and this makes perfect sense. Mussina pitched 3562 innings to Hoffman’s 1089. Hoffman was better at run prevention (141 ERA+ to 123 ERA+) but all of those above average innings by Mussina, including 11 seasons with 200 or more innings, made him much more valuable. Despite this, Hoffman is getting more Baseball Hall of Fame votes. Based on the Hall of Fame tracker, Hoffman has 78.2 percent of the vote and Mussina is at 70.1 percent.

You could take a similar approach with four other starting pitchers on the ballot. Would you rather have Curt Schilling’s career or Trevor Hoffman’s? Johan Santana’s career or Trevor Hoffman’s? How about Jamie Moyer or Chris Carpenter versus Hoffman?

I believe Schilling, like Mussina, is an easy yes. He pitched roughly three times as many innings as Hoffman and was well above average (127 ERA+), yet he trails Hoffman in Baseball Hall of Fame voting (currently at 59.0 percent on the tracker).

For me, Santana is also an easy yes over Hoffman. He didn’t pitch as many innings as Mussina or Schilling, but he pitched nearly double the number of innings as Hoffman and comes very close in run prevention (136 ERA+ versus 141 ERA+). Santana’s vote total is an embarrassment (1.3 percent). He’s likely to fall off the ballot altogether.

Choosing between Moyer and Hoffman or Carpenter and Hoffman when it comes to their overall careers is more difficult. I could see an argument on both sides with Moyer. He accumulated value by pitching for 25 seasons and throwing over 4000 innings, which is four times as many innings as Hoffman. I believe he had enough above average seasons that I would take his career over Hoffman’s, but others will disagree. Carpenter versus Hoffman would be an interesting debate as well.

You could even throw Billy Wagner into the mix. Hoffman has more than seven times as many votes as Wagner. If 100 people were asked to choose between Hoffman’s career and Wagner’s career, does anyone think seven times as many people would prefer Hoffman’s career?

The point being that Hoffman doesn’t compare to Mussina or Schilling and, for me, Santana. There starts to be an argument with Moyer and Carpenter. To me, that leaves him outside the Hall of Fame discussion.

One final way to consider Hoffman’s Baseball Hall of Fame case is financial. The world revolves around money and baseball is no different. Owners pay players based on the value they expect to get from them. What do the salaries of these players tell us about how they were valued?

Show Me the Money

In his book, The Mind of Bill James, the Godfather of Sabermetrics wrote, “Dollars and cents are an incarnation of our values. Economic realities represent not what we should believe, not what we like to saw we believe, not what we might choose to believe in a more perfect world, but what our beliefs really are.”

With this in mind, we can look at how owners valued the pitchers in this discussion during their playing careers. How much was Hoffman valued, based on the money he earned, compared to the aforementioned starting pitchers? This can be a proxy for how their careers were valued and can be used as another consideration for the Hall of Fame.

There are different ways to look at this because of the overlapping careers involved and the fact that player salaries go up over time. A big picture look shows that Johan Santana earned roughly $162 million in his career, which is the most of this group of pitchers. The following total earnings come from each pitcher’s Baseball-Reference page:

• $162M—Johan Santana (2000-2014)
• $144M—Mike Mussina (1991-2008)
• $114M—Curt Schilling (1990-2008)
• $99M—Chris Carpenter (1997-2013)
• $93M—Billy Wagner (1995-2010)
• $84M—Jamie Moyer (1986-2012)
• $80M—Trevor Hoffman (1993-2010)

• $169M—Mariano Rivera (1995-2013)—not yet on the ballot

Santana has an advantage here because his career lasted at least four years beyond the end of many of the pitchers on the above list and he was handsomely compensated for those four years. So how about a snapshot of the three-year stretch from 2006 to 2008? This includes the final three years for both Mussina and Schilling when they were in their late 30s. Hoffman is also in his late 30s during this time, while Wagner is in his mid-30s and Moyer is in his mid-40s.

Total earnings from 2008 to 2010:

• $41.1M—Mike Mussina (ages 37 to 39)
• $38.7M—Johan Santana (ages 27 to 29)
• $34.0M—Curt Schilling (ages 39 to 41)
• $31.5M—Billy Wagner (ages 34 to 36)
• $24.0M—Chris Carpenter (ages 31 to 33)
• $19.0M—Trevor Hoffman (ages 38 to 40)
• $18.0M—Jamie Moyer (ages 43 to 45)

• $36.0M—Mariano Rivera (ages 36 to 38)—not yet on the ballot

Hoffman was still a good closer during this stretch. He led the NL in saves in 2006, with 46. He had 42 saves in 2007, then dropped to 30 saves in 2008. He even made the All-Star team twice. But his salary was comparable to Jamie Moyer, who was in his mid-40s. Hoffman didn’t come close to the salary of Mussina or Schilling, who were both roughly the same age as Hoffman. Fellow closer Billy Wagner also made significantly more than Hoffman, although he was four years younger.

Next: Trevor Hoffman: San Diego Padres’ most hidden gem

When he played, Hoffman wasn’t valued by his team as much as other pitchers on the current Baseball Hall of Fame ballot were valued. If his team paid Hoffman $23 million less than Mussina and $15 million less than Schilling over this three-year period, how can the voters think he’s more deserving of the Hall of Fame? Shouldn’t a Hall of Fame pitcher be paid more than a starting pitcher in his mid-40s?