Billy Wagner Moves Closer to Cooperstown

There have been four all-time great relief pitchers eligible to make the Hall of Fame in the past seven years. On the January 2018 ballot, Trevor Hoffman was voted into the Hall. In July 2019, Lee Smith and Mariano Rivera received plaques in Cooperstown. If the 2018-19 voting were a game of musical chairs for relievers, it’s clear that there were only three chairs, and Billy Wagner was the closer who was left without a seat when the music stopped.

A flame-thrower despite being only 5’10”, Wagner was a proverbial beast on the mound. By basic run prevention, base-runner prevention, or strikeout metrics, Wagner was one of the most effective pitchers in the history of baseball. However, his accomplishments span only 903 career MLB innings pitched, which would make him the first pitcher ever inducted into the Hall having pitched less than 1,000. Whether it’s for that reason or others, the doors to the Hall of Fame have so far remained closed to Billy Wagner.

There is a ray of hope right now, however. The last four Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) ballots have been far less packed with Cooperstown-worthy players than the ballots from 2013-19; 20 players were elected by the BBWAA between 2014-19, with two more in 2020 (Derek Jeter and Larry Walker), one in 2022 (David Ortiz), and one last year (Scott Rolen).

Thanks to the extra space on each writer’s ballot (with a limit of 10 names they can select), Wagner has been gaining momentum in the last several ballot cycles. This most recent ballot, in particular, was light because there was only one strong first-time candidate (Carlos Beltran), and there are five players who were on the 2022 ballot who weren’t on the 2023 edition: Ortiz, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, and Curt Schilling. The latter four players finished their ten years of eligibility last year.

And, so, after getting less than 18% of the vote from 2016-19 (75% is required for induction), Wagner has seen his vote share increase dramatically, cresting with a robust 68.1% of the vote last January

Wagner has two more years on the ballot (this year and in 2025). Although there is another closer who had an excellent career on the current ballot (Francisco Rodriguez), he’s not in Wagner’s league; K-Rod earned just 10.8% last January.

If the writers elect any relief pitcher to the Hall in the next couple of years, it will be Wagner. Given the momentum he’s gotten in the last few years of the balloting, he’s gone from “longshot” to “likely” to make the Hall of Fame via the BBWAA before his time expires.

Cooperstown Cred: Billy Wagner (RP)

9th year on the ballot in 2024 (received 68.1% of the vote in 2023)

• Houston Astros (1995-2003), Philadelphia Phillies (2004-05), New York Mets (2006-09), Boston Red Sox (2009), Atlanta Braves (2010)
• 422 career saves (6th most all-time)
• Career: 2.31 ERA (2nd best in last 100 years to Mariano Rivera) (min 750 IP)
• Career: 187 adjusted ERA+ (2nd best in all MLB history to Rivera) (min 750 IP)
• Career: 11.9 strikeouts per 9 innings (2nd best in MLB history to Kenley Jansen) (min 750 IP)
• Career: 0.998 WHIP (walks + hits per 9 innings) (3rd best in MLB history to Jansen & Addie Joss)
• 7-time All-Star

(Cover photo: Houston Chronicle)

Portions of this piece were originally published in November 2017 and have been updated in anticipation of the 2024 vote.  

Billy Wagner’s Hall of Fame Election Trajectory

In eight years on the BBWAA ballot, Billy Wagner received 10.5%, 10.2%, 11.1%, 16.7%, 31.7%, 46.4%, 51.0%, and then 68.1% of the vote in an election that requires 75% to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

In January 2018, Trevor Hoffman received 80% of the vote and was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, Lee Smith was a unanimous selection by the Today’s Game Committee in December 2018, after spending 15 years on the BBWAA ballot and maxing out at 51% of the vote. Mariano Rivera was a unanimous selection in January 2019.

There’s one reason and one reason only why Hoffman made it into the Hall on his third time on the ballot while Smith needed to wait for the Eras Committee, and Wagner looks like he’ll need 9 or 10 years if he makes it at all via the BBWAA. It’s the total career number of saves, pure and simple. Hoffman, with 601 career saves, was in the range of the great Rivera (652), while Wagner is in 6th place, behind John Franco and Rodriguez. Smith is third with 473 saves, but that never impressed more than 51% of the writers.

Smith was a bit of a different case because he made his MLB debut in 1980, while Wagner started his career in 1995. For the first half of his career, Smith was a multi-inning closer (in the mold of a Rollie Fingers, Rich Gossage, or Bruce Sutter), while Wagner was a 9th-inning-only closer.

Hoffman, however, was truly a contemporary, starting his career just two years earlier and retiring after 2013, the same year Wagner hung up his cleats. Is it fair to Wagner that Hoffman has a plaque in Cooperstown over Wagner simply because he piled up more appearances and total saves, even though (based on hit and run prevention), Wagner was the superior pitcher?

We’ll delve into that question after a brief look at Wagner’s career highlights.

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Billy Wagner: Before the Majors

William Edward “Billy” Wagner was born on July 25, 1971, in Marion, Virginia. Marion is a small, rural town in southwestern Virginia, near both the Tennessee and North Carolina borders. His father (Bill “Hotsey” Wagner) and mother (Yvonne Hall) were married when Hotsey was 18 and Yvonne was just 16. Food was sparse and there was domestic violence in the Wagner household. The couple divorced when Billy was 3, and he spent much of his early years with his grandparents.

Billy’s life got better when he was 14 and moved in with his cousin’s family. Billy was both a football and baseball star in high school. He was born a natural righty but learned how to throw left-handed after breaking his right arm and shoulder when he was 5. As a senior, he struck out 116 batters in 46 innings while posting a 1.52 ERA. Still, because of his size (5’10”, 170 pounds), he did not draw any Major League scouts.

Wagner enrolled at Ferrum College, a Division III school. (Ferrum, VA is about halfway between Roanoke and Greensboro, NC). As a sophomore, he set an NCAA record by striking out 19.1 batters per 9 innings. That mark started opening some eyes; Billy the Kid was selected in the 1st round (12th overall) of the 1993 draft by the Houston Astros.

After pitching just 28.2 innings in the New York Penn League in 1993, Wagner spent a full season in Quad Cities (Midwest League) in 1994. He started 26 games, going 8-9 with a 3.29 ERA in 153 innings. The small-ish lefthander struck out opposing hitters at a ferocious rate, whiffing 204 batters in those 153 IP. He did struggle with his control, however, yielding 93 walks.

Wagner split the 1995 campaign between the Texas League (with the Jackson Generals) and the Pacific Coast League (Tucson Toros). The Astros called up the now highly touted prospect in September, but his arrival to the team was delayed by the news that his parents had been brutally murdered. After joining the club, he pitched to just one batter before the season ended. Billy the Kid started the 1996 season back in Tucson before being recalled to the Astros in early June.

Thanks to Leslie Heaphy for the biographical info in Wagner’s SABR bio. 

1995-2003: Billy Wagner’s Houston Years

Wagner was strictly a starting pitcher in his brief minor league career, but when he was called up to the big league club in June 1996, the Astros needed help in the bullpen, so that’s where he went. Wagner never started a game in the major leagues.

Wagner was solid in his first three major league seasons (62 saves, 2.68 ERA, 150 ERA+), striking out batters at an incredible rate (13.7 SO/9), but he also had control problems (4.3 BB/9). He really broke out in 1999 when he added a curveball to his pitching arsenal. At the same time, those notorious control problems started to diminish. In that ’99 campaign, he saved 39 games and posted a 1.57 ERA (287 ERA+) while striking out a ridiculous 124 batters in 74.2 innings. He made his first All-Star team and finished fourth in the N.L. Cy Young Award voting.

At the end of that great ’99 campaign, however, Wags started feeling some pain in his golden left elbow. The pain lingered into 2000, significantly impacting his performance. His strikeout rate went down (to 9.1 SO/9, his walk rate went up to 5.9 BB/9), and his ERA skyrocketed (to 6.18 in 27.2 innings) before he underwent season-ending surgery in June.

Billy the Kid bounced back in 2001 (his age 29 season): he saved 39 games while posting a 2.73 ERA. He followed that up with 35 saves and a 2.52 ERA in 2002.

In 2003 (his final season in Houston), Wagner had a monster campaign. He saved a career-best 44 games (out of 47 chances) while logging a 1.78 ERA (247 ERA+). He made his third All-Star squad and received down-ballot MVP consideration for the 2nd time.

With Wagner as their closer, the Astros made the post-season four times but were bounced in the first-round Division Series every year. Wagner didn’t do especially well in those October appearances (he gave up 5 runs in 4.2 innings spread out over 5 appearances), but he had only one save opportunity in the team’s 14 LDS games.  It was the Astros batters (notably Hall of Famers Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell) that came up short. As a team, the ‘Stros hit just .167 in 1997, .182 in 1998, .220 in 1999, and .200 in 2001.

2004-05: Philadelphia Story

After that terrific 2003 campaign, Billy Wagner was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for three young pitchers, none of whom would amount to much in the majors.

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Starting over in 2004 with a new team, Wagner battled injuries in his first season in the City of Brotherly Love (limiting him to 21 saves in 48.1 IP), followed by another spectacular season (in 2005) in which he made his fourth All-Star team and saved 38 contests, all while posting what was then a career-best 1.51 ERA.

2006-09: Meet the Mets

2005 was Billy Wagner’s free-agent year and he parlayed his terrific ’05 season into a four-year, $42 million contract with the Phillies’ N.L. East rivals, the New York Mets. At the time, it was the biggest free-agent contract ever for a relief pitcher. The 2006 Metropolitans were loaded, featuring a core of Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Carlos Delgado, and Jose Reyes, with veterans Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez anchoring their rotation.

Wagner had another excellent season, saving 40 games with a 2.24 ERA. The Mets were the N.L. East champions and breezed through the NLDS, sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in three games, with Wagner saving Games 1 and 2 and finishing off Game 3, which the Mets won 9-5 (thus not a save situation).

In the NLCS, the 97-win Mets were heavy favorites to defeat the 82-win St. Louis Cardinals. The Mets won the first game 2-0, behind seven innings of shutout ball by Glavine and a scoreless 9th inning for Wagner.

Unfortunately, Game 2 will forever be one of the signature moments in Wagner’s career, and not in a good way. He entered the game in the top of the 9th inning with the score tied at 6 and, after battling through a 3-2 count, yielded a solo home run to So Taguchi. Wagner gave up 3 more hits and 2 more runs in the inning, and the Mets lost 9-6.

New York ultimately lost that series in 7 games, with Beltran famously striking out with the bases loaded and the tying run on 2nd base in a 3-1 Game 7 loss. It’s the closest Billy Wagner would ever get to the World Series.

Wagner had two more excellent seasons with the Mets before being forced to undergo Tommy John surgery on his left elbow in September 2008. He worked hard to get back on the diamond and returned the following August, pitching two games for the Mets (who were out of contention) before getting traded to the Boston Red Sox. In Boston, Wagner served as Jonathan Papelbon’s set-up man. Wagner got to play October baseball again with the BoSox, but they were swept in three games by the L.A. Angels in the ALDS.

2010: Swan Song in Atlanta

In December, Billy Wagner signed a one-year contract with the team he rooted for when he was a kid, the Atlanta Braves. He decided early in the spring that 2010 would be his final campaign, and he went out in style. He made his 7th All-Star squad, saved 37 games, posted a career-best 1.43 ERA, and struck out 104 batters in 69.1 innings.

Thanks in part to Wagner’s superlative swan song, the Braves made the playoffs for the first time since 2005, losing in the NLDS to the eventual World Series champion San Francisco Giants.

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The Hall of Fame Case for and Against Billy Wagner

Billy Wagner, despite being just 5’10” tall and 180 pounds, struck out batters at a rate that is the envy of the greatest strikeout artists of all time. Despite his slight frame, Billy the Kid was able to hit 100 miles per hour on the radar gun (the New York Post’s Joel Sherman has called him the “mini-me” of the 6’10” Randy Johnson).

To get us started, let’s take a look at how Billy Wagner stacks up with the recently elected Hall of Fame closers and how all four match up with all relief pitchers in history who have tossed at least 750 innings out of the pen.

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Wagner’s career ERA of 2.31 is the second-best (to Rivera) in the last 100 years for any pitcher who has tossed at least 750 innings. His .187 BAA (batting average against) and 11.9 strikeouts per 9 innings used to be the best ever for 750-inning pitchers, but Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel have now reached over 750 career innings, and both have a superior BAA and SO/9 rate.

Admittedly, those numbers lose a little luster when I reveal who is 4th best all-time for BAA; it’s Armando Benitez. Before you fully exhale your sigh, you should know that Wagner’s career ERA was nearly a full run lower than Armando’s, so the 4th-place guy in those categories is not in Wagner’s, Kimbrel’s, or Jansen’s league.

As a pitcher, your job is to prevent runs from scoring. In order to prevent runs, it’s useful to not give up a lot of hits. In any situation, but especially if you’re pitching with runners on base, striking out the batter can be a helpful thing as well.

So, it’s fair to ask, if we have a pitcher who (among those with at least 750 innings pitched) is the second-best in the last 100 years at run prevention (ERA), the 3rd best ever at striking out batters (K per 9 IP), and the 3rd best ever at keeping batters from getting hits (BAA), you might think that would be an obvious Hall of Famer. As we’ve already seen, if you thought that, you would be wrong.

Remember also that Jansen’s and Kimbrel’s careers were in their infancy when Wagner hit the ballot for the first time. So, at the time, Wagner had the best ever BAA and SO/9 for pitchers with at least 750 IP, and the writers weren’t impressed, putting Hoffman into the Hall in 2018, the same year that Wags got 11.1% of the vote.

Commonalities with Trevor Hoffman

Besides being perennial All-Stars, elite closers, and retiring at the same time, Wagner and Hoffman also share a bond that represents a blemish on their Cooperstown resumes. Both pitchers lack the October success and World titles that are prominent in the careers of Hall of Fame stoppers Mariano Rivera, Rollie Fingers, Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter, and Dennis Eckersley. In addition, Hoffman and Wagner both blew save opportunities in the All-Star Game (Hoffman in 2006, Wagner in 2008).

Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought about the value of relief pitchers. The first school is that relievers are inherently overrated because of vastly lower workloads compared to starting pitchers. The second school of thought is that top relievers are invaluable because they generally pitch in the most critical situations, and that value is heightened in October. However, without that post-season glory, Wagner must rest his Cooperstown case strictly on his regular-season performance.

What Might Have Been: The Consequences of Retiring Early

Billy Wagner retired at the age of 39 despite the fact that he was still at the top of his game. He retired because he wanted to spend more time with his family but, in doing so, may have severely hampered his Cooperstown chances by not piling up his raw save total.

The list below shows the all-time saves leaders through their age 38 seasons (defined as your age at midnight on June 30th of that year). Wagner turned 39 on July 25th, 2010.

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Rivera’s 170 saves after his 38th birthday are the most ever and Hoffman’s 119 are 3rd best.

(In 2nd place on the 39 and over list is Hall of Fame knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm, who pitched until 16 days shy of his 50th birthday and accumulated 144 of his 228 saves between his age 39 and age 49 seasons. Fourth on the list is Eckersley: he saved 115 games after his 38th birthday).

One-Inning Wonder?

There are two big factors that weigh against Billy Wagner as a potential Hall of Famer. First, his 903 career innings pitched would be the fewest for any pitcher enshrined in Cooperstown. (The fewest currently is 1,042 innings, pitched by the late Bruce Sutter, a borderline candidate who needed 13 tries on the ballot to get into the Hall).

The second beef against Billy the Kid is that he was just a one-inning wonder and that his raw save total of 422 is less impressive than, for instance, Sutter’s 300, Gossage’s 310, or Fingers’ 341 because the closers of the 1970s and ’80s often came into games with runners on base and tossed multiple innings when called on to put out fires.

These are both legitimate arguments but wouldn’t the same then also apply to the already inducted Eckersley and Hoffman?

Well, let’s take a look at that by examining how all of the Hall of Fame closers stack up with Wagner and Rivera with respect to how they did when entering with runners on base.

IR = inherited runners 

IS%  = percentage of inherited runners who scored

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As I discussed in the piece Trevor Hoffman: Closing in on Cooperstown (written before his election in 2018), his success in putting out fires, while perhaps not widely known by the BBWAA writers, is a major feather in his cap.

The other thing we can see in this chart is that the “one-inning wonder” rap on Wagner is legitimate. 166 inherited runners are less than half of those faced by Rivera, Hoffman, or Eckersley and dramatically less than the other Hall of Fame stoppers.

The Value of Innings per Save

As we saw in the chart above, most of the currently enshrined Hall of Fame closers were true “firemen,” often coming into games with runners on base, which makes the odds of preserving the team’s lead significantly more difficult. In the last 30 years, the significant majority of any closer’s save opportunities come in a “clean 9th inning” (or extra innings for road teams).

In a research project I conducted in the fall of 2015, I downloaded (from the indispensable Baseball Reference) all of the career game logs for top relief pitchers in the history of the game and then sorted them by the inning that each entered, as long as they had a lead of 3 runs or less (the requirement for a one-inning save).

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It was Oakland A’s manager Tony La Russa who popularized the “9th-inning only” closer concept with Eckersley. The idea took root throughout the game and continues to this day. But it took a couple of years for Eck’s “9th only” role to take root. In 1988, his breakout campaign with 45 saves, only 18 were in “clean” 9th or extra innings.

As we can see, the modern closers on the list here (Rivera, Hoffman, and Wagner) all had a disproportionate share of their closing opportunities in the clean innings, especially as compared to the firemen of yesteryear (Fingers, Gossage, and Sutter, with Smith’s career spanning the two eras).

Relative Save Difficulty

I am not trying to issue a blanket condemnation on the value of the 9th-inning closer. A 3-out save is necessarily an “easy” save. If the closer is protecting a one-run lead, there’s nothing easy about it.

During Wagner’s 16 MLB seasons, if a closer entered the game in the top of the 9th with a one-run lead, the odds of victory for the team were about 83%; if entering the game in the bottom of the 9th with a one-run lead, the odds of team victory were about 79% (the precise probabilities are dependent on the ballparks and the year in question). So, if your team has a 15%-to-23% chance of blowing the game, that’s a good spot for your closer.

However, when a closer is summoned to protect a 2-run or 3-run 9th-inning lead, that starts to creep into the category of an “easy” save.

• Teams with a 9th or extra-inning one-run lead had a 77%-to-85% chance of victory (from 1996-2010)
• Teams with a two-run lead had a 90%-to-94% chance of victory
• Teams with a three-run lead had a 95%-to-97% chance of victory

The truth is you don’t have to be a Hall of Fame-caliber relief pitcher to protect a two or three-run lead when entering the game with only three outs to get and no runners on base.

So, what percentage of saves were truly “easy” for the eight relief pitchers we’ve looked at? Concurrently, how many “tougher” saves did each earn in their career (for simplicity, defining “tougher saves” as every save that isn’t a 3-out save with a two or three-run lead)?

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This is an eye-opening graphic. Wagner’s 6th-best 422 career saves don’t look so impressive when you realize that he only saved 190 games in which he didn’t have a cozy 2-to-3-run 9th-inning lead.

His performance was dominant, but he just wasn’t used enough in super high-leverage situations. And, as we’ve discussed, by retiring while he was still pitching at peak performance, he forfeited the opportunity to pad his numbers to get close to Hoffman’s 601 career saves. Hoffman is behind Rivera on the career saves list. Smith is behind only Hoffman and Rivera.

Wagner is behind Franco and Rodriguez. That’s a big difference. And it’s why he hasn’t been elected yet to Cooperstown while Hoffman, Rivera, and Smith now have plaques.

Why Billy Wagner Deserved a Multi-Year Look

When Wagner hit the BBWAA ballot in 2016, I didn’t think he deserved to make the Hall of Fame, specifically because of the low number of higher-leveraged saves. However, I felt that he deserved a multi-year look, given his outstanding rate stats.

Let me explain further why I felt the multi-year look was needed. As highlighted earlier, Wagner’s dominant peripheral numbers (ERA, ERA+, Batting Average Against, strikeouts/9 innings, and Walk+Hits per 9 innings) are among the best in the history of the game. That’s meaningful, to be sure, but the question that still remains unanswered is how meaningful, based on the usage pattern and volume of innings pitched.

When I originally wrote this piece (in 2017), regarding Wagner’s fantastic run-prevention numbers, the question I had on my mind was whether those numbers would still look quite so uniquely extraordinary four to five years later. In today’s bullpen-dominated game, we’re seeing more dominant relief pitchers posting microscopic ERAs, BAAs, and prolific strikeout rates, thanks to being used for just an inning at a time.

Three of the current veteran closers (Craig Kimbrel, Aroldis Chapman, and Kenley Jansen) all have numbers similar to and, in some cases, better than Wagner’s. However, all three are starting to show their age.

Kimbrel and Chapman are 35 years old (Jansen is 36) and have only pitched between 698-813 innings. Chapman has been fading for years, and it remains to be seen whether Jansen or Kimbrel will remain productive enough to approach the 903 innings that Wagner tossed. (Of course, each of them also lost significant time in 2020 because of the COVID-shortened season).

Wagner used to be the all-time leader for batting average against and strikeouts per nine innings if you use a minimum standard of 750 innings. 750 innings is the arbitrary number that I chose. Jansen and Kimbrel have now surpassed 750 IP, and both have a lower career BAA and SO/9.

I felt that more time was needed to see whether Wagner deserved to be in Cooperstown. As I mentioned on a podcast I did two years ago with Jim Miloch, I wasn’t ready to get to “yes” for Wagner for the Hall until he was in his 9th or 10th year of eligibility. Wagner is in his 9th year on the ballot now. Although I still don’t see him as one of the top 10 of the players who are on the current ballot (Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer, Chase Utley, and David Wright are on the ballot for the first time), as I will explain at the end of the piece, I would check his name this year anyway if I had an actual ballot.

How Billy Wagner’s Rate Stats Look Compared to the “Big Three” of Today’s Game

If you cut the minimum innings to 675 IP to include Chapman, Billy Wagner’s ranks change. Take a look at the career ranks for strikeouts per 9 innings, batting average against, walks + hits per 9 innings, and ERA for today’s top veteran stoppers, along with Wagner, Rivera, and Hoffman.

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Now, again, let’s remember that Kimbrel, Chapman, and Jansen are 35 or 36 years old, so there’s still lots more time for their numbers to continue to drop.

As any baseball fan knows, all three veteran closers have seen their numbers fade in the last few years. Kimbrel, after posting an incredible 1.91 ERA in his first nine MLB campaigns, has posted a pedestrian 3.57 ERA from 2019-23. Kimbrel had 333 saves at the end of the 2018 campaign; he has 417 now and is a virtual cinch to top Wagner’s 422. He signed a one-year contract with the Baltimore Orioles.

Jansen, who has 420 career saves and will pitch for the Boston Red Sox again in 2024, seems like the best bet of the three to keep pitching effectively into his late 30s and is, in my opinion, the most likely to reach 500 saves in his career.

As for Chapman, he’s posted a 3.49 ERA in the last four seasons after sporting a 2.23 mark in the first ten seasons of his career. With “only” 321 career saves and having struggled for several years, he is starting to fade into irrelevance in the Hall of Fame conversation.

Anyway, here are the numbers for saves, save percentage, inherited runners stranded, WAR, and WPA (Win Probability Added) by the four men, side by side:

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Here are some questions for which the answers are not yet known.

1. How much distance will Kimbrel and Jansen put between themselves and Wagner when it comes to the raw total of career saves?
2. Will they finish their careers with similar rate stats in Wagner’s stratosphere or continue to backslide?
3. If they all succeed in matching Wagner’s career numbers across the board, does that mean that all three belong in the Hall of Fame or none?

Considering that relievers only pitch a small fraction of the innings tossed by starting pitchers, it seems like a bit of a stretch that all three would eventually deserve a spot in Cooperstown. However, there’s a huge drop-off among active closers after the “big three” of Kimbrel, Jansen, and Chapman, so I suppose it’s possible.

What the Writers Have to Say

In the last two voting cycles, Billy Wagner has gained dozens of new converts from the returning BBWAA voters who publicly revealed their ballots on Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Famer vote tracker. Here’s a sample of the converted, starting with a veteran writer who got lobbied by a couple of Hall of Famers, one a contemporary closer, the other a teammate:

“(Trevor) Hoffman has advised me to vote for Wagner, who played his final season in 2010 for the Atlanta Braves, had 37 saves and retired at 38 to take care of his four kids... Wagner was loved by his Braves teammates. Last year when I saw him in Cooperstown, Greg Maddux, with 355 wins on his resume, asked me when I was going to vote for Wagner.”

— Barry Bloom, Sportico (Dec. 18, 2024)

“I have rethought my stance on Wagner over time. The little left-hander had 422 career saves and nine seasons with at least 30… Though John Franco had two more career saves, a strong case can be made that Wagner is the greatest lefty reliever in baseball history.”

— John Perrotto, Pittsburgh Baseball Now (Dec. 29, 2022)

“I’m adding closer Billy Wagner to my ballot. Relievers are still viewed as something of an exotic creature by many, myself included. Perhaps we were spoiled by how high a bar Mariano Rivera set, but there’s no harm in making more room for closers with elite and dominant credentials like those posted by Wagner.”

— Michael Silverman, Boston Globe (Jan. 10, 2023)

“What did Wagner do to merit making it onto this ballot when he didn’t on any of my others?

1. He’s picking up steam: If I see, hear and read that my BBWAA peers are picking up a candidate’s momentum, I’ll wonder if I might’ve swung and missed and, from there, consider additional arguments.”

2. There’s a fresh evaluation: the figure that convinced me, ultimately, was the 0.998 WHIP, or walks and hits per inning pitched. Which, again, would be the best in the Hall. I’ve leaned almost entirely on WHIP when citing relievers’ stats over the past few years, as I see it as being infinitely more telling than ERA. Plain and simple, when a manager sends a reliever to the mound, whether it’s to close or whatever, what’s most coveted is keeping runners off the basepaths. And second to that is strikeout capability, a category in which Wagner also was the greatest ever.”

— Dejan Kovacevic, DK Pittsburgh Sports (Jan. 15, 2023)

Note reason #1 for why Kovacevic flipped from “no” to “yes” on Wagner. This is a rarely articulated opinion that happens a lot among the BBWAA voters. When a writer is a “soft no,” and they see scores of their peers voting “yes,” it’s natural to question your previous position.

Anyway, it seems inevitable now that Wagner is going to make the Hall of Fame, but there remain holdouts.

“For RP’s I’m going to hold the line on requiring them to be utterly spectacular given the inherent advantages they have over SPs. Teams don’t value them with huge contracts, so I don’t think we should rate them like starters either… Wagner is very short on DOMINANT seasons. There is no season where he led RPs in WAR.”

— Sean Forman, Baseball-Reference (Dec. 20, 2023)

“I also elected not to vote for Billy Wagner. He is admittedly one of the best relievers of all time, but I believe, given the innings they throw and their overall statistical value, the standard for relievers making the Hall of Fame should be incredibly high. Wagner did not clear that, in my opinion.”

— Rustin Dodd, The Athletic (Jan. 9, 2023)

“I am not a fan of closers. That has been documented, but they are on the ballot and have to be considered. Billy Wagner, who was 47-40 with 422 saves and a 2.33 career ERA, got 51 percent of the votes last year and has a chance at getting in down the road. Ex-Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon, who was 41-36 with 368 saves and a 2.44 career ERA, is off the ballot after one try because he got less than 5 percent of the vote last year.  Agreed — Wagner was better than Papelbon, but not 10 times better.”

— Bill Ballou, Worcester Telegram & Gazzette (Jan. 14, 2023)

 

Finally, here are a pair of quotes from The Sporting News’ Ryan Fagan, who was a “no” last year but a “yes” this year. First, here is what Fagan wrote last year:

“No pitcher… has been elected to the Hall of Fame with fewer than 1,000 career innings. Bruce Sutter is low on that list, at 1,042 innings. Wagner threw just 903 innings in his career. That’s a huge, huge gap… Closers pitch important innings, no doubt. But they don’t pitch many innings.. (Johan) Santana threw 2,025 2/3 innings — more than twice as many as Wagner — and won TWO AL Cy Young awards, plus had three more top-five finishes — and his resume was tossed aside because it was deemed too thin… Until I hear a more compelling argument for non-Rivera type closers in the Hall, I’m a no.”

— Ryan Fagan, The Sporting News(Jan. 3, 2023)

And now, from his column a few days ago:

“I realized maybe it’s time to take a full step back — I don’t want to be readjusting philosophies piece by piece, year after year — and understand I should place a little more value on the role that closers have played in baseball over the past few decades. They’re very important, no doubt. And shouldn’t the Hall represent that change in the game?… Begrudgingly, I admit, probably so…. So he (Wagner) gets my vote this year. But for me, he’s the bar. If you’re Wagner level or better, you’ll probably get my vote. If not, you won’t.”

— Ryan Fagan, The Sporting News (Jan. 17, 2024)

The Relative Value of Relief Pitchers vs. Starting Pitchers

In the last pair of quotes, Ryan Fagan hits on a key point. Johan Santana pitched for only 12 years in Major League Baseball (for the Minnesota Twins and New York Mets) but was brilliant during those 12 campaigns. He won two Cy Young Awards, finished third in two other seasons, and, overall, had six consecutive top 7 finishes. For pitchers with at least 2,000 innings pitched (he tossed 2,025.2 IP), Santana has the 12th-best adjusted ERA (ERA+) in modern baseball history (since 1901).

Despite that sterling record, Santana got just 2.4% of the vote in his only turn on the BBWAA ballot (in 2018). Now, to be fair, this ballot was packed with talent. Four players got over 75% of the vote to make the Hall of Fame. Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling were still getting votes every year. Scott Rolen, who is now a Hall of Famer, got just 10.2%. Andrew Jones got only 7.3% (but received 58.1% last year). Wagner himself got just 11.1% in his third try with the BBWAA. (Writers are limited to 10 votes on each ballot, and there were, in my opinion, 16 players worthy of the honor that year).

Still, Wagner did get that 11.1%, and Santana received only 2.4%, booting off future ballots. Let’s take a look at the two pitcher’s numbers:

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Well, Wagner’s rate stats are significantly better, to be sure. And, given the fact that virtually all of his innings pitched were in the 9th, his batter-by-batter Win Probability Added (WPA) is superior. Santana’s huge advantages are in innings and WAR (since WAR gives credit for the volume of work). In this vacuum, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that Wagner was the more Hall-worthy pitcher.

However, the same writers who voted on the Hall of Fame gave Santana those two Cy Youngs and six top-7 finishes. Meanwhile, Wagner finished 4th (in 1999 with the Astros) and 6th (in 2006 with the Mets) and never got down-ballot Cy Young consideration in any other year.

Additionally, the New York Mets, who signed both players to big-money contracts within a three-year span, certainly didn’t feel that Wagner was more valuable. Wagner was inked to a four-year, $43 million contract in November 2005. A couple of years later (in February 2008), the Mets signed Santana to a six-year, $137.5 million deal.

And, speaking of the Mets, how will the writers evaluate the career of Jacob deGrom, who has also won a pair of Cy Young Awards but has only won 84 games in his 10-year MLB career, thanks to weak run support and injuries that have severely limited his innings. Let’s look at Wagner and deGrom side-by-side.

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Despite the fact that deGrom has to face the same hitters two or more times in every game he’s pitched, his rate stats are remarkably in range of Wagner’s. If deGrom were never to pitch again, could we conclude that Wagner was more worthy of the Hall of Fame?

Of course, deGrom’s career is not over. Even though he’s been limited to 166.2 innings in the last three seasons, the Texas Rangers signed the 34-year-old righty to a five-year, $185 million contract a year ago and will certainly give him every opportunity to come back from his second Tommy John surgery.

At the same time, the Mets signed their ace closer (Edwin Diaz) to a five-year deal worth $102 million. Diaz is only 29 and had no injury history until a freak knee injury during the World Baseball Classic, but the market consistently tells us that MLB front offices value elite starters more than elite pitchers (Sean Forman made this point in his comments about Wagner).

One final note: here’s a “split” comparison between deGrom’s numbers in his first time around the order compared to Wagner, with the note that Billy the Kid only faced 26 batters more than once in a game in his entire career.

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Conclusion

As truly dominant as Billy Wagner was during his career, one-inning relief pitchers simply don’t add as much value as starting pitchers. While Wagner was able to sustain this level of success more consistently than his peers, I’m still troubled by his lack of innings pitched and the fact that closers have been overrepresented in the Hall of Fame in recent decades compared to starters.

However, if I had an actual ballot, I would have checked Wagner’s name this year and will include him on my virtual ballot. There are a couple of reasons for this. When I first wrote this piece six years ago, I commented that there were many active relief pitchers who had the potential to match Wagner’s numbers. Besides Kimbrel, Jansen, and Chapman, I mentioned the names of Zack Britton, Wade Davis, Dellin Betances, and Andrew Miller, all of whom were posting incredible numbers. Britton, Davis, Betances, and Miller have all dropped off significantly and are no longer relevant to the conversation.

So, there is now a big gap between Kimbrel, Jansen, Chapman, and the next closers who look like possibilities to be Hall of Fame candidates in the future. Right now, the only two 20-something closers that deserve mention are Josh Hader and Diaz. Both are a long, long way from being in the neighborhood of having Cooperstown-worthy resumes.

Anyway, to beat a dead horse, because I do subscribe to the theory that relief pitchers are overrepresented in Cooperstown compared to starting pitchers, normally, I would have liked to have seen one more year of perspective to see to what degree Jansen and Kimbrel surpass Wagner as Hall of Fame candidates, or not.

But the truth is that Wagner’s case has looked better and better to me as the years have passed. Wagner was dominant until the end of his career. Jansen, Kimbrel, and Chapman have been fading for years.

But the number one reason I would have voted for Wagner this year if I had a real ballot is that his future induction is now inevitable. Wagner got 68.1% of the vote a year ago. In the entire history of the Hall of Fame voting, the only players who have gotten more than 60% of the BBWAA vote and not eventually made it to Cooperstown (either via the BBWAA or the Veterans Committees) are Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and Curt Schilling. All three men are outside of the Hall for reasons not related to their performance on the diamond.

On Ryan Thibodaux’s Hall of Fame vote tracker, Wagner is currently sitting at exactly 80% (based on the first 185 votes to be publicly revealed). That’s well above the 75% that he needs to get a plaque in Cooperstown. However, the tracker almost always overestimates a player’s final tally, so it will be very, VERY close. But, if I were an actual voter, I would not want to be the guy who kept any player one vote away from the Hall of Fame.

And thus, if he’s going to make the Hall of Fame eventually anyway, why make him wait? Despite the lack of innings, his otherworldly rate stats make his case strong enough to put him into the Hall now. So, finally, over six years since first writing about his candidacy and throwing cold water on his Cooperstown credentials, I am endorsing Billy Wagner for the Hall of Fame.

Thanks for reading. Please follow X on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Chris Bodig

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