Hall of Fame 2019: The case for Billy Wagner

It’s Hall of Fame season — the ballot released this past Monday, results released in late January, spirited debate filling the time between now and then — so let’s consider the case of one of the greatest relievers of all time, that guy who always jogged in to “Enter Sandman”:

Billy Wagner.

Start with the Player A  /  Player B game.

Player A: 18 seasons, 1,035 games, 1089 1⁄3 innings, 2.87 ERA, 1.058 WHIP, 25.8 percent strikeout rate, 7 percent walk rate, .208 opponents’ average, seven-time All-Star, 26.1 WAR (FanGraphs).

Player B: 16 seasons, 853 games, 903 innings, 2.31 ERA, 0.998 WHIP, 33.2 percent strikeout rate, 8.3 walk rate, .184 opponents’ average, seven-time All-Star, 24.1 WAR (FanGraphs).

Player A is Trevor Hoffman, considered one of the greatest closers ever, right up there behind Mariano Rivera, who is eligible this year. Hoffman, in his third year on the ballot, was a member of the Class of 2018. This isn’t meant to disparage his great career but to use as a measuring stick.

Player B is Wagner, who should be a Hall of Famer. At the very least, he is deserving of greater consideration, his resume meriting more than the 11.1 percent of votes he got last year.

The primary difference, of course, is their save totals. Hoffman had 601, second most after Rivera’s 652. Wagner, a former Astros star whose 16-year career included four strong seasons with the Mets, totaled 422, sixth in MLB history. Hoffman also had a larger body of work, holding the edge in seasons, games and innings — and yet the pitchers’ WAR totals are comparable.

Other than that . . . Wagner was better at pretty much everything. Are those saves, the opportunities for which the pitchers had little control over, worth the difference between baseball immortality (in the form of a bronze plaque in a museum) and nearly falling off the ballot (at fewer than 5 percent of votes)?

If it helps, consider their career save percentage: Hoffman 88.8 percent, Wagner 85.9 percent. Both were excellent. (For context, Rivera was at 89.1 percent.)

And it’s not just Hoffman. Again with fewer saves, Wagner matches up with Rivera in ERA (Wagner’s 2.31 vs. Rivera’s 2.21) and WHIP (0.998 vs. 1.000) and struck out batters at a much greater rate. Among the 1,741 pitchers who have thrown at least 900 innings, Wagner’s 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings (as well as his 33.2 percent K rate) are the best in baseball history.

Electing Wagner would require a change in standards for what it means to be a Hall of Fame reliever. Think of it not as a lowering of standards but an adjustment for the evolving game. The purpose of the Hall of Fame, after all, is to remember the best players of each generation, not necessarily to compare players now with players from a half-century ago.

Bruce Sutter, at 1,042 innings, threw the fewest innings of any Hall of Fame pitcher (excluding Satchel Paige and his fellow Negro Leaguers). Other HOF relievers were products of another era, when multi-inning appearances (save situation or otherwise) were the norm, thus creating significantly higher innings totals: Rollie Fingers (1,701 1⁄3 innings), Rich Gossage (1,809   1⁄3), Hoyt Wilhelm (2,254 1⁄3).

Baseball doesn’t have Fingerses and Gossages anymore. Instead, for better or for worse, it has Wagners and Hoffmans and a bullpen system still largely built around saves.

In that sense, the debate surrounding Wagner, Hoffman and others is similar to that of the Hall of Fame designated hitter. The Mariners’ Edgar Martinez, who received 70.4 percent of the vote last year, is expected to pass the 75-percent threshold this time around, which would make him the first Hall of Famer who spent most of his career as a DH — 46 years after baseball “created” the position. The debate will pop up again when David Ortiz is eligible in a few years.

As for the Hoffman-Wagner comparison, well, their final seasons offer context on their late-career abilities and decisions to retire.

Hoffman hung on until his arm petered out. In 2010 with the Brewers — remember when Hoffman was a Brewer? — he had a 5.89 ERA and 10 saves in 50 games. After four blown saves that April, he received only sporadic chances the rest of the year.

Wagner dominated that season, also his last. He had a career-best 1.43 ERA and 37 saves during his All-Star 2010, striking out 104 batters in 69 1⁄3 innings — 13.5 per nine innings. Instead of making $6.5 million on his vesting option with the Braves in 2011, he retired to spend more time with his family.