Wagner balances lower save total with dominance
Billy Wagner was a flamethrowing left-hander and one of baseball’s elite closers during his era.
Despite his 5-10 frame, Wagner overpowered batters with a deadly 100-mph fastball, complementing it with a slider in the high-80s.
During 16 seasons — nine with the Houston Astros — Wagner logged 422 saves, sixth most all time and two shy of John Franco’s record for lefty relievers.
Wagner’s 2.31 ERA over 903 innings is the second lowest in the modern era for pitchers with at least 900 innings, second to alltime saves leader Mariano Rivera (2.21), who becomes eligible in 2018.
Wagner was a seven-time AllStar who twice received National League MVP votes (1999, 2003) and Cy Young Award votes (1999, 2006).
In 1999, he was fourth in NL Cy Young voting after saving 39 games with a 1.57 ERA and 124 strikeouts in 742⁄ innings. CASE FOR Wagner compiled 1,196 strikeouts and struck out nearly 12 batters per nine innings, the best rate of any pitcher with at least 900 innings since 1900. He struck out 33.2% of the batters he faced.
He also had a 0.998 walks plus hits per inning pitched — the lowest mark all time among relievers with at least 500 innings — and held opponents to a .187 batting average against him. From 1997 to 2010, Wagner’s 413 saves were third most behind Rivera and Trevor Hoffman. CASE AGAINST No pitcher has been elected having thrown fewer than 1,000 innings — excluding Satchel Paige, who didn’t pitch in the majors until he was 42. Wagner logged 903 in 853 career appearances. Bruce Sutter, who took 13 years on the ballot to garner enough votes, has the fewest innings pitched (1,042).
Wagner’s 422 career saves are also considerably fewer than Rivera (652) and Hoffman (601). Wagner’s total is even less than active pitcher Francisco Rodriguez, who has 430. Wagner never led his league in saves, his highest finish coming in 2006, when his 40 saves trailed Hoffman’s 46. LOOKALIKES Baseball-Reference’s Similarity Scores doesn’t paint a favorable picture for Wagner, who lands in a neighborhood populated by Rodriguez, Jonathan Papelbon, Joe Nathan and Randy Myers, rather than Rivera and Hoffman, surefire Hall of Famers.
Bill James’ Hall Monitor is more generous, though, giving Wagner a 107 score that puts him seven points above likely election. X FACTORS Wagner was drafted 12th overall by the Astros in 1993. He was being groomed as a starter in the minors before debuting in the majors out of the bullpen in 1995. It’s where he remained. His size was always a question mark.
“(Former Astros national crosschecker) Paul Weaver was sitting behind me in Salt Lake City,” Wagner said. “He leaned over, and he told me he didn’t want to draft me because he thought I was too little and I’d break down. It’s one of those things, ‘Well, OK.’
“If anything I’m not upset about that. I’m happy those people were in my life, because it motivated me. It was one of those things, ‘Well, I’ll show you.’ In my opinion, that’s why God has put me on this pedestal because I can tell kids that size doesn’t matter.” CONSENSUS Wagner, on the ballot for the second time, will gain ground in the voting (10.5% in 2015), but not nearly enough to make traction. As of Jan. 8, Wagner has been named on 12% of known ballots on Ryan Thibodaux’s ballot tracker. And considering Hoffman, who retired in 2010 with the thenMLB record 601 saves, didn’t receive enough votes in his first year of eligibility (67.3% of the needed 75% in 2016), Wagner will likely be on the ballot for years to come.