Mariano
 

I still think the 'save' is a stupid stat...

Booooo

I think there is an argument that Mariano was the greatest pitcher ever. For those who think he was a one inning pitcher go back and look at the box score of the Aaron Boone playoff home run game. As importantly, if not more, Mariano is a better human being that he was a ball player. He will be a credit to the HOF and will now always be remembered as the first unanimous inductee.

2004 ALCS and Dave Roberts.. We all make mistakes.. He was pretty good though..

Absolutely agree with Jay.

Saves or no saves, he pitched 19 seasons with a 1.00 WHIP and a lifetime ERA of 2.21, in the steroid era. His postseason ERA - against the toughest competition - was 0.70. Eleven earned runs in 141 October innings. Unflappable, and a humble, classy person.

I couldn't be happier.

-Al

I am also of the opinion that Mariano was probably the greatest pitcher of all time. He is the son of a fisherman, has remained humble his entire life, and dominated baseball with one single pitch everyone knew was coming but could never figure out how to hit. I was at every Sunday home game for his whole career. You always knew the game was over when you saw him walk out.

One of the better selections by the HOF recently.


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I am thrilled -- that I have all four guys' RCs already lol. As for Mariano, I think it's crazy to call any reliever the greatest pitcher ever but it also would be crazy to call anyone else a better reliever. From all appearances a wonderful man too.

+1

Can’t knock the selection. Hard to celebrate a Yankee doing anything though :)

Incredible pitcher, and an even better human being.

Congrats, Mo.

Mariano
 

Greatest closer ever....absolutely! Incredible Class....the best! Greatest pitcher ever...NOT A SNOWBALL’s CHANCE IN HELL!!!! Totally different scenario when you are facing a handful of hitters ONCE vs three/four times around in the same game. You can never compare a closer to a starter....no way.

Good for Mariano!

Too bad Roy Halladay won't be there for the ceremony.

Couldn't agree more

Greatest closet? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Congrats to mariano...and moose and the rest of a deserving class. Def the best closer of all time... his cutter was practically unhittable and sawed bats in half at an alarming rate! I can’t think of any other player in the upcoming years more deserving of a unanimous vote.

Congratulations to Mariano Rivera on a great Career. Obviously being the only player EVER to be elected to the Hall Of Fame unanimously puts a target on your back. But as a lifelong Yankee fan I cannot imagine a person who deserves the honor more. That being said there are a number of players I cannot understand any baseball writer not voting for Seaver, Griffey.. The list is long. So as the first person to clear that bar, Mariano deserves to be recognized as one of the great pitchers of his generation. It was a pleasure to watch him pitch.
Jonathan Sterling

I can safely say that in all of the years I have known you Jay, I have never disagreed more. I can't imagine anyone thinking a failed starter who ended up pitching 1,200 innings is even in the same company as any of the best all-time starters, who actually closed their own games. You can make a better argument against him not being the best reliever ever because so many of his outings were marginal one inning save opportunities, while closers before his era constantly went multiple innings, facing the entire lineup. I call him the best one inning reliever ever. I don't think highly of any one inning pitcher, they're all over-rated.

Derek Jeter for sure.

A GOAT with only one pitch! AMAZING!

The first unanimous inductee had a spotless record on and off the field.

Truly someone worth revering.



In a sad coincidence, recent news of the Yankees' closer immediately prior to Mo will land him where he belongs...and, in keeping with the morals clause of my personal collection, all his cards will be shredded.


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Saw, or heard, a stat that said teams who led in the ninth converted something like 90%+ of the win regardless of who pitched. Not saying Rivera is not worthy. But it does put the "save" in some perspective.

Mariano
 

Let’s put the “save stat” in total perspective....great post WWII starters like Gibson, Marichal, Koufax, Seaver, Palmer, Hunter, Ford, Jenkins, etc. in their prime completed at least 50% (very conservative I might add) or better of their wins so they got BOTH the win and the save in those complete games! That just about ends the conversation about trying to ever compare a great relief pitcher to a great starter.

Obviously, you don't mean they got the save. That aside, this is a new era where it is rare for any pitcher to complete a game. Those were all great pitchers, but none was as head and shoulders above his competition as Mariano. Ultimately, the term starting pitcher may disappear; we will just have pitchers that throw three innings and those who throw one or less. When that happens and all pitchers are short stint pitchers it will become even more apparent how great Mariano was.

John-To say Mariano is no better than the Sparky Lyles and Ecks of the world would be the second biggest mistake I have ever seen, right after passing on a Taylor Shafer.

At least in theory, all innings are equal, and all runs scored against you count equally. Rivera averaged 78 innings per 162. He simply cannot be as valuable as guys who give you 200+ dominant innings.

It's a different game now. Mariano absolutely deserves it. I also supported Hoffman, since hes probably the second best closer and pitched for a much less talented Padres team.

What modern pitcher pitched as well as Mariano, regular season and post season, and threw more innings?

Mariano
 

Jay - are you actually implying that Mariano can be compared to Top 10 all-time modern day pitchers like Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Greg Maddux, etc., who throttled lineups for 7+ innings per game virtually their entire careers? This is getting beyond silly. Please don’t compare a pitcher who only threw roughly 20-25% of the innings (mostly one inning appearances mind you) tallied by these dominating starters. And, remember that Mariano was a failed starting pitcher, only converted to a relief pitcher because of his recurring issues of being consistently successful over an extended number of innings in a single game. Pitching against the same hitters 3/4 times in a game with dominating success is no simple task, and clearly “light years” tougher than recording 3 outs. I’m not trying to diminish Mariano’s success. As you know, I am a HUGE Yankee fan and worship Rivera who was easily the best all-time performer at his craft. However, his craft doesn’t even come close to measuring up against the task of effectively pitching 7-9 innings per game and roughly 240 innings (give or take) per season.

I do agree with your assessment that the game will continue to change whereby many games will be split with several 2/3 inning pitchers followed by the 1 inning closer. Sad to say, it’s become a game of “specialists”, with Tampa Bay leading the way with this innovative philosophy.

I personally think the “save” and guys who pitch one inning a few times each week are overrated. Rivera was clearly excellent at pitching one inning. I do know this for sure: If I was drafting tomorrow, and knowing exactly how their careers would turn out, I would draft Maddux ahead of Rivera every time.

I’m happy for Mariano. However, the fact that he was the very first player to be unanimously voted into the Hall is unreal. Never once, in all these years, has someone gotten 100% of the votes. Yet, somehow Mariano Rivera (a relief pitcher) accomplishes this astounding feat.

Absolutely stunning.

Mariano
 

So true but you have to understand that for virtually the longest time, there would always be a handful of baseball writer HOF voters that made it “their” rule NEVER to vote for first ballot candidates. For whatever stupid reason they made this stance, it made it impossible to be unanimously voted in. Additionally, my assumption is that some of the voting sportswriters possibly had a grievance with a particular player on the ballot (once again for whatever reason), leading to the voter omitting them from a respective vote. With Mariano being the consummate professional and portraying unparalled class throughout his magnificent career, he obviously did not piss off many sportswriters, if any at all. Also, it is highly likely that the handful of previous “pig-headed” non-first ballot voters have either been phased out or changed their stance. That said, I strongly believe that Derek Jeter will be the 2nd unanimous Cooperstown Inductee.

Could not have said it better...

For anyone actually arguing Rivera is the greatest pitcher of all-time....

Rivera's dominance doesn't occur without starting pitchers (and other relievers) excelling ahead of him. Those starters can excel without relying on Rivera.

Not even getting into simple mathematics of a great starter vs. a great reliever from an innings standpoint.

The beauty of the career WAR statistic is that the list reads like the greatest players of all time that you would expect to see--

1 Babe Ruth
2 Cy Young
3 Walter Johnson
8 Roger Clemens
#15 Pete Alexander
17 Kid Nichols
21 Tom Seaver
26 Greg Maddux

...down the line is Rivera, who is #227, which is very good. He is in the company of #220 Dave Stieb #225 Orel Hershiser #208 Chuck Finley, all very good pitchers. I thought Bruce Sutter was a better closer, but Rivera is right up there with Lee Smith or others you might name. I think he should be in the HOF, but I'd much rather have Tom Seaver in his prime.

At his best, well...he was pretty much unhittable...

Ricky Y

The fact that so many others who were deserving of this honor first but did not receive it is the ridiculous part. I am surprised a voter or two didn't leave him off the ballot just because he was a relief pitcher. I agree he should have not been the first unanimous choice, but he definitely belongs in the HOF.

This is pretty cool...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gaTm3nzraM

There is no question that Mariano deserves to be in the HOF, but it does surprise me a little that he was the first ever unanimous selection. Not Ruth, Cobb, Mays, or Aaron, but Riviera. Just saying.

I find it assanine that a 1 inning pitcher get elected unanimous to the hall of fame. Not even close to the greatest pitcher of all time.

So a guy pitches one inning a game comes in after sitting in the bullpen the whole game and pitches to opposing players that have being playing 9 innings in the 90 plus heat of coarse he's going to strike out players. He might good but by far not worthy of 100% vote. Just my opinion

I have to agree. Rivera was arguably the best closer ever, but the first unanimous selection ever? Should not have been. Twenty writers left Willie Mays off their ballots. Nine left Hank Aaron off. Ridiculous. The other thing to take into account is, had Rivera been just as good, but had come up with the Milwaukee Brewers or San Diego Padres and spent his career there instead of a dominant team surrounding him like the Yankees, would he have recorded 652 saves? Would he have had the same number of opportunities? How would that have affected the way he's regarded?

Being unanimous is meaningless, they just decided finally to abandon the stupid tradition of having someone vote no on obvious choices, likely because Mariano is so universally liked.

If you watched Mariano's career and all you took away from it was a number of saves, I am sincerely sorry you missed out on so much more. The if and but argument over what other teams he might have played for misses out entirely on the fact that on the biggest stage in the game for the biggest team in the game he excelled to a degree that made him the greatest of all time. How can you discount something like that? Do you think it could have been just anyone out there?

As I said, Mariano was arguably the best closer of all time. I saw his entire career and he was phenomenal and well deserving of the Hall. I do think that who you play for does affect how you are regarded and being on a dynastic team allowed him to excel and show off his talent in ways that, had he been on a lesser team, wouldn't have happened. Throughout Hank Aaron's career, and I remember this well, up until the very late 1960s, he was extremely underrated, never garnering the fame or popularity of Mays or Mantle, despite racking up dominant numbers season after season. The difference? They were, in some ways, flashier and more importantly, they were in New York City, Aaron was in Milwaukee. Rivera also benefits from the Big Stage that is New York City and a legendary franchise like the Yankees.

A benefit isn't really a benefit if you can't take advantage of it. Like I said, that argument unfairly discounts what he did on the field. He was on the stage and he dominated it. Not just anyone was going to do that, only Mariano Rivera could. That kind of greatness transcends any one team. You can rest assured he would have been the same pitcher no matter what team he was on.

As a long-suffering Reds fan, I just cannot buy into that. If a lifelong Red, he would have somehow blown more saves (and had far fewer save opportunities). And he probably would've gotten some career-altering injury early in his career.

I believe that being a Yankee, and playing in that market at that time contributed immensely to his unanimous selection.

But are saves a "stupid" stat ? :)

+1

Being a Yankee certainly helped Mariano. He had more save opportunities and a lot of chances to participate in post season games. However, given these opportunities he reached heights that no other reliever ever did.
Relievers and starters are really different positions. It is unfair to compare the two. However, if you had one batter that you wanted to get out over the history of baseball, whether it be Ruth, Cobb, Williams, Bonds, Mays, or whoever, what pitcher would be your first pick to get them out. Mine would be Mariano over anyone else in baseball history.

HOF votes finally are public information. I think this is the first year (or maybe the second?) that votes are made public. Voters can't hide behind their votes anymore. I believe the number of people voting has also decreased by quite a bit since this change was made. Perhaps this is because old school voters (who refused to vote for anyone on the first ballot etc.) have stopped voting since they don't want their votes made public?

Anyway, all of this is a big reason for elite players getting near 100% and now at 100% for Mariano. Now a non-vote actually his repercussions, including a social media fire storm from angry fans. We can expect elite players to get near 100% from here on out. As it should be in my opinion. What reason would there be for not voting for a slam dunk HOFer?

For the record, WAR is a very useful stat but it isn't perfect. Relievers certainly aren't highly valued when considering the bigger picture. It can be argued back and forth about whether saves are overrated or if a reliever is or isn't on par with a starter. The fact is, relievers are a key piece of today's game and the stats don't always tell the whole story. I'm definitely not a Yankees fan, but Mariano was something special. The fact that he's 277th all-time in WAR (Hoffman being buried in the 500's) doesn't mean that I would take 276 of the players above him.

As far as the unanimous part goes, I could care less. I would like to believe that there's some purity to how these awards and honors are determined. But, we all know there are politics, biases, etc...with every one of them. The Heisman Trophy is a great example.