Alex, I used to have nightmares about him.
The Brewers and Astros played a lot when he was in Houston, obviously. Well, his lifetime splits against the Brewers are downright frightening.
Now these numbers go beyond his tenure with the 'stros, as I can't figure out how to narrow a pitcher's splits to multiple years on baseball reference yet. But this should give you a pretty good indication of just how dominant he was against us.
1.62 ERA. 11.9 K/9 IP. 0.840 WHIP.
Yeah. Billy was impressive, to say the least. And while building my team, I wanted at least one dominant lefty that could come out of the pen.
Imagine being a left handed hitter, and having to face Koufax or Carlton for 8 innings, and then having Wagner come out in the ninth. Lefties against "Lefty" hit .233. Against Koufax, lefties hit .207. And against Wagner, lefties hit .189.
Checkmate. Wagner was just awesome. And if there's any left-handed Hall of Fame reliever, it's him. Look at his last season, for God's sake. At 38 years of age in 2010, he was 7-2 with a 1.43 ERA. He saved 37 games, struck out 104 in 69 2/3 IP, and had a WHIP of 0.865. He struck out 13.5 per 9 IP. That's insane!
He was 47-40 with a 2.35 ERA for his career, saving 422 games, striking out 1,196 in 903 innings. 11.9 K/9 IP for his career, and a 4:1 K:BB ratio for his career (and 4.73 in his final season).
That's Cooperstown worthy, imo. And if Rivera goes in, then Wagner deserves to, also. Compare their career numbers. Rivera saved a lot more games (652 to 422), but they had almost identical ERAs (2.21 for Rivera to 2.31 for Wagner), and Wagner actually had a better WHIP for his career (0.998 to 1.000). And K/9 IP? Wagner blows him out of the water. Rivera whiffed 8.2/9 IP, and again, Wagner clocks in at 11.9. The difference, of course, is their post season performances. Rivera was unhittable. The few post season games Wagner played in, he didn't perform well. But if we're talking regular season dominance, Wagner was Rivera's equal. Rivera converted 89% of his save chances, which is mind blowing. But Wagner, at 86%, was right with him. And that's playing without the New York Yankees behind him.