You guys are entitled to your opinions but people keep bringing up Rivera's saves record and personally I think for a player like him the record didn't factor all that much into anybody's opinion of him. He was simply the greatest pitcher of all time and the only pitcher I'd ever want on the mound against any player you want to put up against him in a game I had to win.

Greatest closer? Most certainly. Greatest pitcher? No. Tossing 15-25 pitches three times a week does not the greatest pitcher make.

Saves are the factor that puts him in his special class. Give him the same stats other than saves and he obviously misses the HOF-- how many middle relievers are in Cooperstown? Unhittable in the 6th and 7th? Great, what else you got?

I'm a Mariano fan, so I begrudge him nothing--feel free to give him all the accolades as a player and as a human being. But for him or any closer to even enter a game, others on his team must have already succeeded, and I just do not believe the 9th inning should be exalted to such heights that getting those three outs--even almost automatically--qualifies you as the greatest pitcher.

Todd-If closing is that easy why do the top closers make almost $20 million a year, while middle relievers make a lot less? Why not close by committee and save money? Team have tried it and it doesn’t work.

Great specialist, great human being, not the greatest pitcher of all time.

You'd pick Mariano over pitchers like Sandy Koufax, Tom Seaver, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, etc.? I love Mariano but not me.

Greatest reliever of all time? Yes. Greatest pitcher of all time. No way.

To pitch to one batter—absolutely

How in the Hell does a relief pitcher become the only HOFer to get 100% of the vote??? If you were starting a team today, Griffey Jr., or Mariano? Not even close.....

What?? Greatest pitcher of all time? You have got to be kidding.....This is a relief pitcher for crying out loud.....

Looking at his stats - most impressive indeed. However, one stat I noticed is his wins/losses. Yeah, I know W/L are debatable how important as a reliever, still he had 82 wins and 60 losses. Curious as to the general take on that stat of .577 win percentage. The W/L percentage seems to be low considering he entered games primarily either ahead or tied.

Keep in mind, Rivera wasn't unhittable. In fact, against the Red Sox, the Yankees prime rivals and usually a tough offensive team, he sometimes struggled. His career numbers against them are very good, but not mind-blowing, as they are against other, lesser teams.

From Pinstripe Alley:
"It's true that Rivera's had more bad times against the Red Sox than most other teams. His 2.86 regular-season ERA vs. Boston and his 1.25 WHIP rank well beneath his career norms, and the .644 OPS Red Sox hitters have managed is the second best of any team Mo's faced more than ten times. David Ortiz has been a particular thorn in the great one's side, with a triple-slash line of .342/.375/.500, and the Sox have touched him up for 18 blown saves, including the playoffs. The most memorable of those, of course, were in that 2004 series which may or may not have actually happened, and came courtesy of a Dave Roberts steal and a Bill Mueller single followed the next night by a sac fly when Rivera tried to clean up Tom Gordon's first-and-third, no-out mess."

Keep in mind this is a one inning, three batter pitcher we're talking about. The greatest at his defined role, but not the greatest pitcher of all time.

Jay, I never said closing was easy, I just don't believe that having that skill set alone- being able to command 11% or so of a game--makes you the greatest pitcher. In theory, you can have an ERA of 18 and still save every game you close.

Only one example, and no doubt cherry-picked to support my position, but compare and contrast the 9th inning at Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. DBacks send Randy Johnson out there on zero days' rest, after he dominated the Yankees the day before and threw a complete game shutout in game 2. He retires Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez and Jorge Posada in order, whiffing Posada. Mariano? Needing just three outs to secure the title, he gives up two runs, three hits, hits a batter and commits a throwing error, retiring no one who wasn't trying to bunt. Game over, series over. Now who was the dominant, great pitcher there? And that's not some trivia tidbit about a guy who nobody's ever heard of having just one of those magical series. It's Randy Johnson, whose dominance over many years exceeds Mariano's IMHO, and I'm not advocating that even he is the greatest pitcher of all time.

Again, sorry to be contrarian, and I can think of few players, not just pitchers, who I admire more than Mariano, but greatest pitcher of all time? I'm not buyin.

Think of Pedro in the 1999 All-Star Game or during the 1999-2000 seasons. That was unhittable.

Did he keep it up at that level for as long as Mariano? No, but Mariano also didn't have the wear and tear on his arm and body from pitching so many innings as a starter, either.

You say that like winning championships doesn't matter. A "relief pitcher" who held all opponents to an ERA under 1 over 140 innings in games that mattered the most. I would venture to guess that no one on the Yankees saw Rivera as a "relief pitcher".

People love advanced stats so here's an advanced stat for you. Rivera leads all pitchers all time in ERA +. Pedro Martinez holds the single season record for starting pitchers with an ERA + of 291 in 2000. Rivera eclipses 291 twice during his career and his ERA + of 205 is over 50 points higher than Pedro Martinez's 154, which leads all starting pitchers.

So you tell me how good Rivera was.

Better hope that one hitter you are bringing Rivera in to face with everything on the line is not Edgar Martinez :)

Here is a different way to think about his greatness. Lets say you have to come up with your all time best team one player at a time - kinda like when you were a kid on the playground and the captains each took turn choosing their team one player at at time. Would you pick Rivera with your very first pick? Second pick? Or way down the list after you pick guys like Cobb, Ruth Williams, Walter Johnson, etc.?

Rivera getting 100% has everything to do with it being 2019 and virtually nothing to do with how you feel he might compare to Willie Mays or Henry Aaron. The times are simply changing.

I would pick no pitcher in the beginning, starter or reliever. Mariano would certainly be the first reliever I take. If I am planning to use no pitcher more than a few innings like how the game is going now, he would be my first pitcher overall.

Since WW2, teams leading by 1-run after the 8th inning won 85.7% of the time. When leading by 2-runs it was 93.7%. When 3-runs it was 95.7%.

Over 2/3 (442] of Rivera’s 652 saves came with a 2-run (210), 3-run (180), or 4-run (46) lead when entering the game.

Basically, his 89.1% career save percentage was due to his team already having a 88% or better chance of winning anyway, according to league averages.

Eric--So are you saying that Mariano was worse than the average reliever? I think maybe you should relook at your numbers.

Where does that number come from? I just looked at the team pitching stats from last season and there are only 3 teams in all of baseball with a save percentage 85 % or higher.

http://proxy.espn.com/mlb/stats/team...ded&order=true

Different stat. Wins can be without a reliever, blown save then a win, etc.

Rivera was great. But, packs, I don't care if it's ERA + or any other stat, it's very misleading and difficult to compare a reliever who only had to face three or less batters at a time with a starter like Pedro who often went eight innings and threw 100plus pitches every time out.

I have a feeling that next year at this time you'll be telling us that Derek Jeter was the greatest shortstop of all time... ��

I'm a Yankee fan, and while Jeter was a extremely good hitting shortstop (and an adequate fielder) he was not even the best shortstop of his era. He should not be a unanimous selection, although he will be in the upper nineties percentage wise. Plus, I know one sportscaster who has reservations about Jeter's late career comeback.

What principled basis is there not to vote for Jeter? Nobody on this earth could make out a case why he shouldn't be in the HOF. It's all just a stupid tradition this not voting for a guy the first time so he isn't unanimous, if a guy is an obvious HOF choice then everyone should vote for him.

I'm still blown away by the stupid writers giving a relief pitcher 100% of the vote....What a crock of shit.....How in the Hell did Griffey Jr. not get 100%????? How is it that the first 100% vote getter is a relief pitcher? Please, waiting for answers....The Yankees have always been the best team money can buy, period....

Relief pitcher ERA stats are always going to be misleading, because they don't get charged when runners they inherit score.

It was a stupid tradition not to make anyone unanimous. Who the hell didn't vote for Mays? Aaron? Mantle? Ted? Ripken? Maddux? etc. etc.

+1....Well said Pete

It is not misleading at all. To demonstrate the point, the highest ERA + I found for another HOF relief pitcher was Trevor Hoffman’s 141. Rivera is 205. That’s not even close. The guy was other worldly.

Except against the Sox and David Ortiz... :)

Come on man....It's obvious that he was loved by the writers, and not stats...He is a relief pitcher.....Both players being the same age, would you take Rivera or Griffey Jr.? Simple question.....

Your focus is on who didn’t get 100 percent of the vote rather than what the guy did in his career who did get it. Respect the career man. Rivera was from another planet.

The guys pitched an average of 71 innings a year.

He only pitched 62 more innings than Babe Ruth in his career.

His team played at least 1,458 innings a year.

If he was so fucking good why did they sit him on the bench for for more than 95% of their games?

Closers are a joke.

Him being elected unanimously is a joke.

I hate the new ways of baseball.

Doug "I'm just annoyed because the Dodgers sat half their team for half their games because of 'matchups' in the WS" Goodman

For me, I would take Rivera over Griffey Jr every day of the week and twice on Sunday. As long as we are talking their whole careers.

You can’t use ERA+ for relief pitchers because they don’t put in any innings to qualify on a yearly basis. For example, a relief pitcher who has 1 appearance for the year and doesn’t let in a run has an ERA+ of infinity (I think, although dividing by zero screws thing up). In fact, Rivera’s career ERA+ was 11 before his final year of 194.

Dumb stat for low inning relief pitchers. Probably a dumb stat regardless.

I guess I’m glad it was Joe Torre in the dug out because the way some of you guys are talking about Rivera it makes me wonder if he would have even been on the team with you there instead.

He was used in ideal situations that when compared to the league as a whole in the same situations showed that statistically he was just marginally better than average. Half his saves were 9th inning only with 2 or more run lead.

Only 1 save with 7 recorded outs or more. Gossage had 52.

Despite the longevity of his career, he is only 142nd in Inherited Runners. Should be top 3. No inherited runners = higher percentage chance of making the save. Just wasn’t used much in risky situations.

Statistically, one of the most overrated players of all time.

Character-wise, a great player and teammate.

Eric-With all due respect, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Wow....Just, Wow!!! A reliever over one of the best regular players of all time, a guy that plays every day....Really???? I thought you knew baseball Ben.....

Mariano isn't the best pitcher ever in my opinion, but I would put him somewhere in the #10 - #20 range all time for pitchers. I value relievers more than most in here (obviously), but the value of an elite reliever is off the charts in terms of actually winning baseball games. And the point is to win baseball games. A team with a near 0 +\- run differential can be significantly over .500 with an elite closer finishing one run games. I'm a M's fan, and this happened last year with the M's and Edwin Diaz. By every metric we should have been a .500 team, but we finished 89-73. The idea that elite closers are somehow overrated is bizarre to me. And as the best closer ever by a wide margin, the idea that Mariano is somehow overrated blows my mind.

For one batter I guess I'd take J.R. Richard.

I think Adam Vinatieri is a good football comparison to Rivera. Clutch kicker for a great team.

The Astros won a World Series without a closer 2 years ago. In the book, 'Moneyball' didn't they say "trade the closer"? You can close with Bud Norris and win a championship.

The Rays pitched Snell normally because he was all they had. If they had other good starters they would not do the "opener" stuff.

There are a few all-time greats I see differently than most. Another reason is Rivera had a very consistent high level career and Griffey Jr was very inconstant.

You can't rationally pick a guy who pitches the 9th inning every third game or a little more frequently over a guy who hit 600 HR in his career. No way.

And I think you can only compare Rivera to relievers, not starters. They're essentially different positions, a guy who pitches the 9th every third game or so and a guy who goes 200 innings plus.

Tony Gwynn???

What? You mean he had hitting streaks right? Sometimes he was great, and other times he was awesome?

If you choose to look at it this way then you are going to have to ask more than 400 people why they were "stupid." The answer would be at a high level someone either gets into the HOF or doesn't and that is the yardstick, not ballots or votes. But instead we are human and have to take it degrees further than that. Player X is better than player Y because they were first ballot and not second, or received 95.3 percent of the vote instead of 89.2. Speaking of stupid...where do we draw the line? To insist that a player's vote demographics always precisely reflects how "great" they were or were not on the field is a bit of an unreasonable ask. What goes into the vote often has nothing to do with that, and this has been true virtually since time immemorial. I'm over it.

Just a weird observation but what with the special election vote 2 to 3 months after the tragic death of Mr Clemente and now the unanimous vote for Mr Rivera, perhaps HOF/MLB is sending out a message that priority will be given to community service over stats/status?
By the way congratulations to Mr Rivera.

To paraphrase P. T. Barnum, finding 400 stupid people isn't all that difficult.

Rivera was asked to pitch one inning once every two or three days in a game his team was already winning. I can’t even imagine what the career numbers for the all time great starters would look like if you spotted them a lead every time they pitched.

of course, I'm fine with Rivera for the HOF. A poster in a group I am in on Facebook made the point that he was probably the first unanimous only because the ballots are no longer anonymous, meaning no one had to cop to not voting for Williams or Mays but would now be held accountable. You'll see lots more in the near future.