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 385th 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 405th. That’s below Chris Bosio. Goose Gossage was worth 41.8 WAR, which puts him tied for 161st. 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 104th 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 46th among all pitchers) and John Smoltz (66.5 WAR, 39th). 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 317th among all pitchers. Wagner, at 27.7 WAR, ranks tied for 325th.
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 76th 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.