Stop with all the "failed starter" BS. He got all of 10 chances at the major league level. The very next year he was a full time reliever and finished 3rd in Cy Young Award voting as a relief pitcher despite only getting 5 saves. Once you have that type of success in the bullpen, you aren't going to be stretched back out to become a starter again the next season (except in rare situations).

I always think about how dominant John Smoltz was as a reliever in the early 2000s and thinking, why did Atlanta move him back to the starting rotation. But he was amazing there too. The best starters are often pitching at 85-90% at the beginning of a game and then they bring it up a notch when the going gets tough and then they start registering some ridiculous numbers on the radar gun, despite being fatigued. The reliever has to be 95-100% the entire time they are out there. It's impossible to adequately compare the two.

I'm in agreement with most. Greatest reliever of all time and probably top 20 pitcher of all time. His post-season stats are lights out and can't be ignored in the context of evaluating his entire career.

Well put.

Nothing bothers me more than this "failed" perspective. It's such BS and not even worth talking about. Lefty O'Doul hit 398 in 1929 as an outfielder after he "failed" as a pitcher. Does that discount hitting 398?

Give me a break.

Babe Ruth was a failed pitcher too. So bad he had to give it up. :)

I would agree with you the numbers are not there to say anything about him as a starter. But that said, how do you explain his extremely low inherited runners number, why didn't the Yankees use him more in late inning crisis situations instead of almost exclusively as a guy to hold a lead in the 9th?

Are you serious? Have you not even looked at his post-season numbers? Are you really suggesting the Yankees didn't have enough faith in his abilities to use him in high leverage situations?

Again, how do you explain his inherited runners statistic? I wasn't suggesting anything, I asked a question.

What other explanation can there be other than that was what happened during the game? I don't even know what you're asking. It's like saying why was the sun out that afternoon.

As I stated earlier, I lost interest in modern baseball during the steroid era but I was wondering if anyone invented a statistic yet that showed how great you were compared to your salary? I’m all for anybody making as much money as they legally can but if some guy walked into my office and said “I want 12 million per year and I’m 90% sure I can give you two or three solid innings per week” , i’d do my best Hue Jackson impersonation and tell him “get the **** out of my office”

No, the stat obviously reflects that he was not brought into a lot of situations with men on base, and I am curious why the Yankees chose not to do that. To me the highest and best use of a great reliever would be to pitch out of a jam, not just preserve a lead.

But they're two solid NINTH innings LOL.

I stand corrected
 

You’re right!!! I should have offered fifty or sixty million!! I can’t wait until he walks across water to reach the podium at the hall of fame. When he telepathically relays his acceptance speech straight into the brains of us mere mortals, it will make the special wing they’re building just for Him all worth it.

Someone else will have to deliver the first 8 minutes of the speech.

Hall of fame for posts
 

We should have a hall of fame for posts. This should be in it.

Doesn't matter. The ninth minute of the speech is the only one that matters.

That's why the writers voted for Mussina.;)

Hoffman wasn’t that good. He was a failed SS.

Word limt
 

I’ve been told they’re putting Rivera on a word limit just like a pitch count. After14 words, he’s done for the day. Don’t worry, he’ll be back three days later to finish up.

Nevermind

As of 2011:
Since 1997, Rivera has inherited 323 runners, which is an average of 23 over a 162-game season. Ninety-four of the 323 inherited runners scored.

Does anyone know how that percentage compares to relievers other than Hoffman, who is mentioned in the article as being 9 percent better in that category?

No, but if he was asked to bunt all of the time would he be the best hitter ever if he could get on .300 percent of the time? Heck, raise that to say .400 career lifetime of bunting everything and he has the highest batting average of any player in history.

No, he would be the best bunter and maybe not even that, and he would have been a "failed" pitcher on top of that.

Well, I'm sure old Lefty felt like a real failure at anything after he hit 398. Probably felt even worse when he led the league in hitting again in 1932 when he only hit 368. If only he had been a good starting pitcher, the rest of his career would have meant something.

Mariano has the 2nd most blown saves in postseason history...

And Connie Mack lost almost 4,000 games. What's he doing in the HOF right?

Him or that all time walk hander-outer, Nolan Ryan. Let's break into Cooperstown with a crowbar and get those plaques off the wall...

Not the point. The point is Yankee fans tend to deify Rivera and speak of him as though he was "unhittable," infallible, automatic (made all games 8 inning games), etc. As though he was on a completely different level from all other closers. He wasn't. He was a great closer, no question, the best ever, but he also blew a lot of saves, allowed a fairly high percentage of inherited runners to score, and so forth. and given the inherent limitations of a closer, nowhere near top 10 or 20 all time IMO.

And sure, if given a lead and an overwhelming majority of his appearances started with a lead and the bases empty, he very likely would preserve that lead. But as we have seen, that is true for closers in general statistically. Again, yes he was the best of them, but not IMO by such a margin that he should be deified.

So please explain how a relief pitcher with a career record of 82-60 gets 100% of the vote, but guys like Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, T. Williams, Joe D., Mantle, Mathewson, Johnson, Hornsby dont....Doesn't even make sense......Let me go one step further....What about Nolan Ryan? He played on shitty teams most of his career....Mariano was on the best teams money can buy....Guys this discussion is a joke....

Greatest closer of all time. Not a top 10 pitcher of all time.

From my experience, if you go to the non-sport board and start a poll "Who is Mariano Rivera?" They don't know. They've never heard of 'im. He's a local celeb like Joe Mauer.

I thought he was a painter until I read this thread. Baseball. Who could have seen that one coming?

Here's an interesting analysis of closers.

https://dizzydeane.wordpress.com/201...ated-position/

Great article, but really it's not that involved. If you like WAR look at WAR for an elite reliever. it's about 1/3 to 1/4 the WAR of a great Starter or position player. Pretty simple.

I mentioned the ongoing Mariano debate here to an old friend via email yesterday.

His response

“Wasn’t he one of the three tenors?”

Scott- Beyond the metrics, I found it interesting that closers turned starters had no success. How many highly successful starters become closers? Closers are generally high velocity or one pitch specialists that have shown difficulty being successful when pitching a number of innings in one game. Otherwise, they would be starters.

Stats ERA G IP HR BB SO WHIP SO/9 SO/BB
as Starter 5.94 10 50.0 8 20 38 1.680 6.8 1.90

He also didn't even make the majors until he was 25, so FAR from an elite starting prospect.

You clearly hang with culturally astute folks.
Then again, if one of them got tired at the end of a concert....

Scott- I wasn't speaking specifically about Rivera's numbers as a starter, but he sure was converted from starter to reliever quickly. At the time, I would think that conversion had more to do with his future prospects as a starter than his future prospects as a closer. He didn't exactly shine as a starter. I know this is a small sample size, but it backs up what I've said.
I do believe Rivera is the best closer of all time. I just don't believe the best pitchers in baseball are converted to closers. They remain starters.

After an exhaustive check, I can assure you that the three tenors never closed a concert or concert this way

“Mr Sandman, bring me a dream
Make him the cutest that I’ve ever seen
Give him two lips like roses and clover
Then tell him his lonesome nights are over.”

But the Chordettes did.:D

I posted that in support of your point. I agree with you.

I get it, Scott.

For the first six years of Koufax’s career (six years, HALF OF HIS CAREER) his average year was 6-7, ERA-4.10, WHIP-1.428, “so FAR from an elite starting prospect”. At that point he wasn’t even good enough to turn into a closer. Maybe you should focus on the totality of Mariano’s work.

Agreed, the 'totality" of Mariano's work gets him in the HOF with today's game. He is not in the top 40 greatest pitchers.

Glad to see that we all agree now about Mariano.

Maybe we should move on now.

I’ll present the

Hall of Fame case in support of Bennie Bengough

1. He sat on the same bench with Babe Ruth.

2. He is the #1 Card in his most popular contemporary baseball card set.

3. He played for the New York Yankees.

4. Several people who live close to the Hudson River consider him the best catcher of all time.

The Veterans Committee really dropped the ball on this one.;)

https://www.collectorfocus.com/image...bengough-benny

Let me ask you all this. You have a great pitching prospect. What would you rather have him turn out to be:

1.) A dominant starter.

2.) A dominant closer.

Calling Rivera a "failed starter" might be a tad misleading if he only got a small amount of starts at the Major League level. But I ask myself, "why?" Did the Yankees have such a dominant starting rotation that they could afford to put Rivera in the bullpen?

If he's one of the greatest pitchers ever, wouldn't he be more valuable to the Yankees as a starter? You know he's going to get the ball 32+ times a year. A closer, you have no guarantee he'll even pitch. If the rotation and/or middle relievers are not doing well, Mariano is sitting in the pen watching the game.

This is clearly not accurate because as we've seen since Rivera, plenty of teams have hemmed and hawed over what to do: Joba Chamberlain comes to mind, as does the Yankees current closer Aroldis Chapman.

They were even talking about this debate when David Price came up.