Is Billy Wagner really a Hall of Famer? A few thoughts on this year’s BBWAA voting.

One reason I choose not to vote for the Hall of Fame is that it gives me the freedom to critique the electorate as an objective outsider. I’ve explained my rationale several times before, but it’s really quite insufferable, so I’ll spare you the gory details. I bring it up only as a matter of full disclosure. I’m not going to reveal my ballot because I didn’t submit a ballot. Instead, I’m going to ridicule people who did.

Actually, no. I’m being slightly facetious. I’m not going to ridicule anybody. Not the 82.5% of HOF voters who decided that Billy Wagner deserves a spot amongst the greatest of the greats. Certainly not Wagner himself. Ridicule is the thing I hate most about the current voting procedure. Here in the social media era, the three stages of Cooperstown are Candidacy, Enshrinement, and Inquisition. I guess I’m a bit of a prude when it comes to public flogging. To the person who left Ichiro Suzuki off the ballot: I hope you voted via blockchain.

A vote for Wagner is hardly worthy of a witch hunt. He checked off a lot of boxes during a 16-year career that included a two-season stint with the Phillies sandwiched between his eight-plus years with the Astros and three-plus with the Mets.

» READ MORE: Former Phillies closer Billy Wagner elected to Hall of Fame, joining Ichiro Suzuki and CC Sabathia

There’s no question that Wagner was one of the best at what he did. The question is whether that alone rises to the level of “Fame,” especially when what he did was throw one inning every other day.

It’s an interesting thing to think about. Closers are a unique breed, not only amongst baseball players, but within the context of team sports. Can you think of a comparable position where a player with such a specialized role enjoys superstar status? A major-league baseball pitching staff will record up to 4,374 regulation outs in a 162-game season. Wagner’s career-high was 258 outs, meaning he was on the field for roughly 6% of the season.

Yet, nobody will dispute the importance of those outs, nor the importance of the closers who record them at an elite level. Bryce Harper accounted for 10.2% of the Phillies’ plate appearances this season. On the one hand, that’s nearly 75% greater share of plate appearances than a closer will have of outs in his best seasons. On the other hand, a closer is in a different league than, say, an NFL kicker.

Navigating that great in-between has been one of the great philosophical dilemmas confronting HOF voters. They had consistently set the bar high. The two most recent closers to earn enshrinement were true outliers. Rivera was a pure Hall of Famer: You can’t tell the story of baseball in the late 90’s and early 2000’s without him. His 652 saves are, by far, the most in MLB history. Hoffman’s 601 saves are far closer to Rivera’s than the next closest behind him (Lee Smith, 478).

Rivera: Ipso, facto

If Rivera, then Hoffman.

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One can argue that Rivera and Hoffman were players who set the bar higher than their predecessors. Before their enshrinements in 2018 and 2019, the only relievers in the Hall of Fame were Hoyt Wilhelm, Goose Gossage, Rollie Fingers, Dennis Eckersley, and Bruce Sutter. The first four of them, at least, qualified as special achievement outliers. Eckersley finished his career with more innings than Roy Halladay. Fingers and Gossage were closer to Sandy Koufax than Wagner.

Sutter? He was the Wagner of his time. Except, he had something that Wagner doesn’t: a World Series ring, and a starring performance in securing it (six appearances, three saves, two wins, 12 innings in the Cardinals’ 1982 victory).

The bar continued to slip in 2019, when the Today’s Game Committee selected Lee Smith for enshrinement alongside Rivera, one year after Hoffman was voted in. It speaks volumes that Smith was not voted in, despite the fact that his 478 saves ranks third all-time, and are 56 more than Wagner’s.

I’m not here to say whether Wagner should be a Hall of Famer. All that matters is that he is. A Hall of Famer is whatever the electorate should be.

But this year’s election was consequential in a way that I’m not sure many realize. With Sutter, Smith, and Wagner all in the Hall, a precedent has been set. It used to be that a Hall of Fame closer was a subset of Hall of Fame pitchers. He was a pitcher who was so clearly an outlier that he deserved enshrinement, despite the specialized role.

Wagner? He never transcended that role. Rivera was a central figure in baseball’s story for a decade and a half. Wagner was a guy who was also really good and might have achieved the same legendary status in a different situation. But, then, situations matter. Fame is a situationally dependent thing. In all lines of work, there are people who have all the talent and production of those more famous than they. They just aren’t. There is no shame in that. But we can’t redefine the word “fame.”

Or, maybe we can. If Wagner is a Hall of Famer, you will be hard-pressed to argue that Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, Francisco Rodriguez, Joe Nathan, and Jonathan Papelbon aren’t. The first three have more saves than Wagner. Papelbon has a similar ERA+, plus the postseason exploits.

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At the end of the day, the electorate defines the institution. In electing Wagner, the BBWAA has defined the modern-day closer as its own entity, with candidates’ credentials measured not against the whole of the body but against this specific peer group. Wagner is unquestionably one of the best of that bunch.

Does that make him a Hall of Famer?

It does now.