Baseball Hall of Fame: Does Trevor Hoffman belong?

The Current Six

There are currently six pitchers who pitched regularly in relief who are in the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1985, Hoyt Wilhelm was the first reliever inducted. He did not pitch the way the current closers pitched. He started 52 games in his career and never saved more than 27 games in a season. He only had three seasons with 20 or more saves. He also pitched more than 2000 innings in his career.

Rollie Fingers made the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992. He started 37 games in his career and had just two seasons with 30 or more saves. He averaged 1.7 innings per relief outing and pitched 1701 innings in his career. In his prime, Fingers pitched twice as many innings per season as current closers. He also once struck out Johnny Bench after first pretending to intentionally walk him.

Three closers made the Hall of Fame in the five elections from 2004 to 2008. Dennis Eckersley (2004 inductee) was dominant in relief, but also started 361 games and pitched 3285 innings in his career. Bruce Sutter (2006) was closer to the modern closer than Wilhelm, Fingers, or Eckersley. He never started a game in his career and only pitched 1042 innings. Goose Gossage (2008) was similar to Rollie Fingers. He started 37 games, pitched 1809 innings and averaged 1.6 innings per relief outing.

The most recent closer-ish inductee was John Smoltz in 2015. Smoltz is a Dennis Eckersley-like closer. He started 361 games and pitched more than 3000 innings. When you consider Smoltz and the others, it’s evident that only Bruce Sutter is remotely comparable to the closers of today. The other four either had significant success as starting pitchers or pitched many more innings than the guys finishing games in this era. This makes it very difficult to determine the standards for the relievers currently on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot.