Before I begin, a quick note about ERA+, since I will use it often in this blog. ERA+ takes a pitcher's ERA and adjusts it for park and era. An ERA+ of 100 is league average. Higher is above average, lower is below average.

Hall of Fame Relievers

In my last entry I discussed the Hall of Fame chances for starting pitchers. This time out I will cover the relievers. Relief pitchers are a difficult field to judge because the Hall of Fame voters are still establishing the bar of excellence. To this date, only four relievers have been elected to the Hall (Bruce Sutter is not techically a member until his induction next month, but we're treating him as an inductee for this purpose). Here's a brief overview of their statistics.

Hoyt Wilhelm (1952-72): 143-122, 2.52 ERA, 146 ERA+, 227 saves, 2,254.3 Innings Pitched

Rollie Fingers (1968-85): 114-118, 2.90 ERA, 119 ERA+, 341 saves, 1,701.3 IP

Bruce Sutter (1976-88): 68-71, 2.83 ERA, 136 ERA+, 300 saves, 1,042.3 IP

Dennis Eckersley (1975-98): 197-171, 3.50 ERA, 116 ERA+, 390 saves, 3,285.7 IP

When comparing starters, you can make a group of Hall of Famers and compare candidates. You can not really do that here because all four inductees are different. Hoyt Wilhelm was a knuckleball pitcher who did not even reach the majors until the age of 29 (incidently, he hit his only career home run in his first at bat). Rollie Fingers looks like an undeserving candidate in some aspects, but he did retire as the career leader in saves. Dennis Eckersley combined dual careers as a starter and reliever. And Bruce Sutter may or may not have invented the split-finger fastball.

The difficulty is that some relievers with equal credentials have been excluded. Dan Quisenberry for example finished with a career ERA+ better than any of the four Hall of Fame relievers above. Voters are less impressed with final results and more impressed with image. A reliever needs either a blazing fastball or high strikeout totals. Quisenberry rarely struck out batters, but he walked as few batters as any pitcher in modern baseball history.

What is the best measure of reliever quality? Saves? The top five in saves are Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman, John Franco, Dennis Eckersley and Mariano Rivera. Jeff Reardon follows at number six. The problem is that saves are a product of the current era. Jose Mesa has 319 saves and a career ERA+ of 101 (just about average). That's certainly not Hall of Fame quality.

You need to set aside statistics across eras. The trend in relief pitching has been to utilize shorter outings. Modern relievers pitch less innings than twenty or thirty years ago. However, they pitch at MUCH higher effectiveness. Billy Wagner's ERA+ would rate as the best of all time, but he has not even pitched 700 innings at this rate. If pitchers of this era pitched in a different era, they could pitch longer but less effectively. The same goes for the relievers of the Gossage/Sutter era.

So the only real way to identify Hall of Fame relievers is to compare them against the current era. The mark of a Hall of Famer is separation from the pack. If many players have reached the same level of achievement, then it's not that outstanding a performance. From baseball-reference, I identified the 15 active leaders in games finished. Those 15 relievers compiled ERA+'s ranging from 197 to 101.

I think we can safely dismiss the nine relievers with ERA+'s under 140. I do not see a single Hall of Fame candidate among that group. That gives us six names. Mariano Rivera, Billy Wagner, Troy Percival, Armando Benitez, Trevor Hoffman and Keith Foulke. Billy Wagner and Troy Percival each have less than 700 innings pitched for their career, and Armando Benitez and Keith Foulke are barely above that. All four would easily have the fewest innings pitched of any Hall of Fame pitcher (including Babe Ruth). That leaves Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman as legitimate candidates with an acceptable number of innings pitched.

Mariano Rivera has really surpassed any element of debate. Rivera's ERA+ is better than any pitcher in baseball history. On top of that, he has pitched 111.7 innings in the postseason with just an 0.81 ERA, an 8-1 record and 34 saves. Not only is Rivera's postseason ERA the lowest of any pitcher with significant postseason innings, but they are nearly all high leverage innings.

Trevor Hoffman's a slightly more difficult case. His ERA+ is very good, but Rivera, Billy Wagner, Troy Percival and Armando Benitez are better (and Wagner's is significantly better). How much strength do you put in 150-200 more innings pitched? It is not insignificant, considering that is 3-4 seasons worth of work for a relief pitcher. Hoffman doesn't have a real postseason resume (although he's pitched well when given the opportunity. Hoffman has however put himself in reach of the all time saves mark. When Hoffman reaches the All-Time saves record, he should punch his ticket to the Hall of Fame. His ERA+ is on the level of the elites, and you have to do something right to set the saves record.

The big question mark is Billy Wagner. No one really discusses him as a Hall of Famer, and I never really saw him as such. But his 180 ERA+ is one of the greatest marks in baseball history, and only Rivera is really on his level. Wagner is the most dominant left handed relief pitcher of all time. However, his 650 or so innings is incredibly low for a Hall of Famer. In 3-4 years however, he might be a serious candidate.