The Hall of Fame has been difficult to get into, but now a reliever is the first to receive a unanimous ballot?
With the changing voting landscape, a Hall of Fame unanimous vote was inevitable. However, Mariano Rivera being the first just doesn’t ring right.
Babe Ruth. Willie Mays. Mickey Mantle. Ken Griffey Jr. Johny Bench. Cal Ripken Jr. Tony Gwynn. Trevor Hoffman.
All seven of the players I just named and every single other Hall of Fame members all have something in common. They did not receive 100% of the votes from the writers to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.
So why should Mariano Rivera receive a unanimous vote?
Mariano Rivera is known as the “best closer of all-time” because he has the most saves in MLB history. But who was the first player to 500 saves? What about 600 saves?
Trevor Hoffman.
He played on the San Diego Padres who made the World Series just once while Hoffman was in uniform, so he did not get the spotlight on him like Rivera did, as he won five world series championships.
But if you compare the stats, Hoffman is pretty close to Rivera with less run support and less opportunities.
In 80 less games, Hoffman had a higher strikeout percentage at 25.8% while Rivera was at 23%. Hoffman also had a higher strikeouts per nine innings at 9.4 while Rivera was at 8.3.
Rivera’s ERA was only .66 lower than Hoffman and had only 40 more strikeouts.
When you look at the 1998 season when they both advanced to the World Series, and the Yankees 1998 team is arguably one of the best single-season teams of all time, Hoffman had an ERA of 1.48 while Rivera was at 1.91. Hoffman had 50 more strikeouts than Rivera and seven fewer hits allowed.
As I said, if you don’t even look at the advanced stats, Hoffman had fewer opportunities than Rivera, played on a small market team, and the writers who were on the East Coast did not stay up to watch Hoffman.
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Then, it took Hoffman three years to just get into the Hall of Fame (79.9%) when he is very similar to Rivera, and Hoffman was better than Rivera in multiple categories.
Now if we look at the players I mentioned at the beginning of the article, you are telling me that Rivera deserves to get in on a perfect ballot more than Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, and Tony Gwynn? I think not.
In each nine-inning game, Rivera played in about 11% of his team’s outs while players like Johnny Bench and Tony Gwynn played in 100% of his team’s outs. So a relief pitcher who got to play for the best franchise during his career, which by the way means he got to pitch in games that they had more than a one-run lead a majority of the time, gets to have a unanimous vote, but monumental players like Tony Gwynn who played on laughable teams during his career, but pretty much hit .400 during a season, and had a lifetime batting average of .338 does not get 100% of the vote?
That does not make sense.
I am not saying that Mariano Rivera is not a Hall of Fame player. I am saying that if players like Tony Gwynn and Trevor Hoffman who had to play their career under much worse circumstances, did not get 100% from the voters, then neither should Mariano Rivera.