Is Billy Wagner the second most dominant closer ever?
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You guys know me by now, and I'm a numbers guy. Mariano Rivera, regardless of numbers, is the best closer in history. He keeps getting better, and he'd be my #1 guy in my all-time bullpen.
As I was going through my previous article on closers, I realized that nobody has better raw numbers than Billy Wagner. Take total saves out of the equation, because I know he isn't even in the top-20 yet, but let's examine his other digits against the greats.
Wagner -- 2.40 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 11.93 K/9, 3.81-1 K/BB
Trevor Hoffman -- 2.73 ERA, 1.05 WHIP, 9.87 K/9, 3.85-1 K/BB
Lee Smith -- 3.03 ERA, 1.26 WHIP, 8.73 K/9, 2.57-1 K/BB
Dennis Eckersley (as a closer) -- 2.97 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 8.83 K/9, 6.79-1 K/BB
Goose Gossage (as a closer) -- 2.33 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, 8.44 K/9, 2.60-1 K/BB
Rollie Fingers (as a closer) -- 2.90 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 6.87 K/9, 2.64-1 K/BB
Mariano Rivera -- 2.28 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 7.70 K/9, 3.67-1 K/BB
I know there are other greats to compare with, but these are some of the best closers of all-time, and Wags looks like he has better numbers than all of them. I'm not saying that these four categories are the only stats needed to determine this, but Wagner's domination has been going on for almost 10 years now. I'm saying he's the #2 most dominating closer in history.
Date
Wed 07/26/06, 12:11 pm EST
