Does anyone know how many saves Mariano Rivera has off the top of their head? Someone probably does but no one cares. He’s the most dominant relief pitcher of all-time, you have to find a place in the HOF for a guy like that. What becomes difficult is that everyone wants to use numbers to compare everyone.

Statistically Hoffman may end up appearing somewhat close to Rivera but he was never even close to as dominant, very few are, so his HOF case is far less certain than Rivera’s in my mind. Then again Blyleven got in as an accumulator so why wouldn’t Hoffman, even as a closer. This is a case where the stats fanatics miss the point. What is on your computer isn’t always what was happening on the field.

I’m sure the regulars on HBT are sick of hearing this from me but get past the stats and start listing, as baseball observers rather than stats fanatics, the best hitters you’ve seen since 1990 regardless of position…I’m guess if you were honest with yourself it took you at least 25-30 names before you got to Edgar Martinez and yet people keeps spouting off that “he’s one of 6 to do this” and “one of 8 to do that” but how dominant was he? Maybe in your mind top 30 in 15 years is elite, maybe, but, again if you were honest with yourselves, look at the names you listed above him, there are at least 5-10 guys with no shot at the HOF.

Now do the same with pitchers, regardless of their role, start listing the best pitchers since 1990…Rivera’s probably in your top 10, even as a closer, but you get to what, 50? 75?, before you reach Hoffman? Sure, it may be a fairly elementary take on HOF candidates but if you get down to it, the HOF is the best players in baseball and since you can’t compare eras because they’re so different, it’s the best players of an era, hence, start ranking the best players and see where people fall. A big Hall vs. small Hall cutoff will certainly be different but conceptually isn’t that what we’re supposed to be doing?

Recently elected HOF’er Bert Blyleven threw nearly 5000 innings to get his 287 wins. Overall he had 537 decisions (including his 250 losses), so he worked almost 10 innings for every decision. As a contrast, Hoffman worked less than 2 innings for each of his saves.

Not slighting Hoffman, just more evidence how that 600-save plateau might not be as special as some people think.