Poll: is Mariano Rivera one of the top 10 pitchers of all time?

[Cmount76]

Originally Posted by AGuinness

With almost no thought, I can name 4 pitchers in his own era that were better by leaps and bounds (if not more): Pedro, Clemens, Big Unit and Maddux....

+1 - Add to that Young, Matty, WaJo, Gibson, and Ryan and without even thinking about it, he's off the list.

[Peter_Spaeth]

To make a more immediate comparison, I would take Halladay over Rivera and probably Mussina if I thought about it. To me a HOF caliber starter is more valuable than the best one inning relief pitcher.

[AGuinness]

And for the record, and as a Red Sox fan, Rivera was the greatest reliever of all-time, no doubt and a slam-dunk Hall of Fame player. His body of work speaks for itself and I don't want to take anything away from his brilliant career.
Perhaps an interesting follow-up question, though, would be if Rivera's cutter was one of the top-10 pitches of all time...

Not in the top 40.

****as a side note, Mussina getting in is nearly as much of a disgrace as Baines/Trammel/Morris. Very disheartening trend for the sanctity of the HOF.

[frankbmd]

Originally Posted by sfh24

Not in the top 40.

****as a side note, Mussina getting in is nearly as much of a disgrace as Baines/Trammel/Morris. Very disheartening trend for the sanctity of the HOF.

Never dis an inductee who wore a Yankee uniform on this forum.

Too many objective Yankee fans lurking here.

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Never dis an inductee who wore a Yankee uniform on this forum.

Too many objective Yankee fans lurking here.

You make a good point. I may have made a catastrophic mistake of diminishing (2) Yankees in one post!

[oldjudge]

People keep saying that batters only saw Mariano once a game. That is true, but they often saw him multiple times a series and he basically threw one pitch. They knew what was coming—they just couldn’t hit it.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

People keep saying that batters only saw Mariano once a game. That is true, but they often saw him multiple times a series and he basically threw one pitch. They knew what was coming—they just couldn’t hit it.

So what.

Are you telling me that if you had one of the 10 best pitchers of all time on your team you would only let him pitch 70 innings a season, most (if not all) coming in when you had a lead?

Seriously?

He was really really good, probably the best, at the job he was asked to do, I'll acknowledge that, but top 10 of all pitchers all time?

Come on.

Doug "Roy Gleason has a lifetime batting average of 1.000, slugging percentage of 2.000 and OPS of 3.000" Goodman

[clydepepper]

Originally Posted by oldjudge

People keep saying that batters only saw Mariano once a game. That is true, but they often saw him multiple times a series and he basically threw one pitch. They knew what was coming—they just couldn’t hit it.

…for a few years, Sutter had that effect, but he was never considered the GOAT or even in the pasture.


Rivera added longevity, but he was still just a one-inning master, perhaps the best one-inning pitcher ever.

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Some of the best starters could be just as dominant the first time through the lineup...even so-so pitchers could even be that dominant early in the game on in a while.


True that Rivera did it time and time again, but...

How many times did any one hitter get to face Rivera more than once in the same game?

I'll bet the answer is very few.

Hitting at the big league level requires one to adjust from at-bat to at-bat.

Starting pitchers also have to adjust from at-bat to at-bat.

One-Inning pitchers, even their GOAT, never have to make that adjustment.

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[CurtisFlood]

Originally Posted by AGuinness

And for the record, and as a Red Sox fan, Rivera was the greatest reliever of all-time, no doubt and a slam-dunk Hall of Fame player. His body of work speaks for itself and I don't want to take anything away from his brilliant career.
Perhaps an interesting follow-up question, though, would be if Rivera's cutter was one of the top-10 pitches of all time...

That is a fair assessment.

[aconte]

Great pitcher but like many have said not one of the best all time.
Great entrance music though so maybe that came into play with
the voters.

[Ricky]

Originally Posted by Cmount76

+1 - Add to that Young, Matty, WaJo, Gibson, and Ryan and without even thinking about it, he's off the list.

Add Koufax, Grove, Seaver, Carlton, Randy Johnson...

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Cmount76

+1 - Add to that Young, Matty, WaJo, Gibson, and Ryan and without even thinking about it, he's off the list.

Several in that list I would include before Ryan - among them Spahn and Seaver - but yeah your point holds regardless.

I have no problem calling Mo the greatest reliever of all time, but would agree with many others that it is hard to put great relievers into the same category as all-time great starters.

[darwinbulldog]

Hard to place him, but I'm fairly confident in keeping him out of the top 10 but putting him somewhere in the top 50. I'd have him ranked higher than most here would.

I judge a player, regardless of position, and of sport for that matter, primarily by the extent to which he contributes to his team's win total. Obviously the more innings you have, the more opportunities you have to help or hurt your team. So where does that leave us?

On the one hand, nobody, Ruth included, did more per inning to help his team win than Mo did. On the other hand, several dozen pitchers did more per game, per season, and in their career totals.

I'll concede that if he had been forced to be a starter and pitch an average of 7 innings once every five days throughout his career that he likely wouldn't have made the Hall. Maybe he would have had a Koufax career arc, but I doubt it. On the other hand, I don't believe that WaJo or Grove or Seaver or Clemens would have done any better (or even as well) as a closer as Mo did, so while technically playing the same position I see discounting Mariano's greatness on the grounds that he wasn't and would not have been a commanding starting pitcher as akin to saying that Jim Brown wasn't such a great football player because he couldn't pass particularly well and only touched the ball about 20 times a game while other players (i.e., QBs) might touch the ball 70 times a game).

I'm not going to penalize a player for having been born into an era when managers realized their teams could win more games by using a platoon approach than by expecting starters to finish their games. If everyone in the 1990s was using PEDS and no one in the 1940s was it's not because the players of the 1940s were more ethical or more talented. It's just a cohort effect. By the same token, it may be that all of the great pitchers of the deadball era were pitching hundreds of innings per year, but that doesn't give us grounds to conclude that a 21st century pitcher who throws fewer than 100 innings per season isn't a great pitcher. If Rivera and Mussina switched roles, the Yankees would certainly have won fewer games, and indeed fewer World Series, not only because Rivera wouldn't have been as good a starter as Mussina, but perhaps even more so because Mussina would not have been as good a closer as Rivera.

[packs]

It just blows my mind that a guy who was as elite as Rivera was in the modern game, one in which people on this very board who say things like Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Grover Alexander, etc are all unquestionably ahead of Rivera, are the same people who argue all the time about who would have been a star today.

Rivera was elite in today's game. The most multifaceted, specialized version of baseball there has ever been. He also competed against all comers, not only those MLB allowed to play in their time. And yet, despite all that you still doubt his abilities and put others ahead of him from a time and game whose merits are constantly debated.

[h2oya311]

Not only are we trying to compare players across eras, but we are essentially comparing marathoners to sprinters. Who's the greatest "runner" of all time, Haile Gebrselassie (marathoner from Ethiopia) or Usain Bolt (Jamaican sprinter)? Asking whether a certain pitcher is better than another across disciplines (and eras) is essentially asking the same thing. It's a silly and futile exercise, regardless of the metrics and WAR and other advanced stats that people can pull from their arses.

Relievers are sprinters, starters are long distance runners. There's room for both on today's squad. Don't try to compare them.

[SteveMitchell]

Originally Posted by h2oya311

Relievers are sprinters, starters are long distance runners. There's room for both on today's squad. Don't try to compare them.

Agreed. This statement reminds me of the title of one of our game's greatest books: The Glory of Their Times by Lawrence Ritter.

[egri]

If he was really one of the top 10 pitchers of all time, he would have been a starter, something much more important than pitching one inning with the bases empty and no outs.

[Vintageclout]

Originally Posted by h2oya311

Not only are we trying to compare players across eras, but we are essentially comparing marathoners to sprinters. Who's the greatest "runner" of all time, Haile Gebrselassie (marathoner from Ethiopia) or Usain Bolt (Jamaican sprinter)? Asking whether a certain pitcher is better than another across disciplines (and eras) is essentially asking the same thing. It's a silly and futile exercise, regardless of the metrics and WAR and other advanced stats that people can pull from their arses.

Relievers are sprinters, starters are long distance runners. There's room for both on today's squad. Don't try to compare them.

OK - based on your point, the great post WWII starters that pitched pre-1980 were BOTH sprinters & long distance runners (like the greatest racehorse ever Secretariat...LOL). Gibson, Seaver, Marichal, Koufax, Palmer, Hunter, Ryan, Carlton, etc. ran their 8 inning long distance races and then, for the most part, sprinted to the finish line in the 9th inning by finishing their own games. This is why Mariano cannot be mentioned in the same breath with these great starting pitchers. It really borders on insanity to think that Mariano can be compared to these starting pitcher studs.

[Peter_Spaeth]

It's madness. But so far 40 votes for top 10 pitchers ever.

[bobbyw8469]

Yea...when I voted I wasn't thinking clearly. I think Mariano is without a doubt, one of the greatest RELIEVING pitchers of all time. But all time pitchers?!?! Not hardly. Can I change my vote?

[tothrk]

No one is doubting his abilities. Everyone seems to agree that Rivera was outstanding at what he was asked to do. Someone suggested that Rivera was the greatest/best pitcher ever which opened up a debate involving every other person to ever pitch in a Major League Baseball game. Some people simply seem to think other pitchers were better. Wait until this conversation starts with another over rated Yankee, Jeter.

[Ricky]

There have been other closers who were as good as Rivera at their peak. They just weren't able to remain at their peak for as long as Rivera. That makes Rivera the best closer ever. But not the best pitcher ever.

No Not a Starting Pitcher