Hall of Fame Poll: Billy Wagner

Billy Wagner’s on the Hall of Fame ballot for the third time. He was on 10.2% of the ballots last year. He was around that 10% both time one the ballot.

He pitched for 5 different teams, in his 16 year career, spending most of it with the Houston Astros.

Wagner sits 6th on the all-time saves list. He made 7 All-Star teams, won 1 reliever of the year award, got MVP votes twice and Cy Young votes twice.

He pitched in 853 games, had a 2.31 ERA (terrific career number) with 422 saves. He averaged 11.9 strikeouts per 9 innings (that's a pretty amazing career number).

Billy pitched in the playoffs 7 times, but never made it to the World Series. He has pretty terrible numbers in 14 playoff games.

Comparing him to Hoffman (who gets a larger percentage of the votes), he has about 150 less innings, he about half a run better ERA, he has about 60 more strikeouts (in the 150 less innings) and 7 less walks (in 150 less innings). The argument for Hoffman over Wagner is all the save count (601 for Hoffman, 422 for Wagner). Wagner had 69 blown saves for 86% save percentage. Hoffman 76 for an 89% save percentage. So the difference in the Writers vote is all the save total.

Matt’s chart:

Similar Players: None, really. Mariano Rivera (1283 innings, 49 ERA-) would be the closest, but that's 400 more innings + playoffs difference. Tom Henke is the closest on there, and he was one-and-done with 1.2% support.