Is Trevor Hoffman a Hall of Fame Player?

I expect him to be a Hall-of-Famer. It's hard to predict which ballot and that type of thing, but he'll make it. The stats are just too exceptional. And being a good guy who had no connection to steroids likely has some value at this point in time.

 

You're talking about in the ERA+ thing? Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.

 

SWS >>>>>> ERA+

 

I think he and Rivera are the only ones who will get in, but both are definitely Hall of Famers. I don't think either will have to wait long either (2-3 years tops...)

 

My two favorite intros for relief pitchers ever were

Hoffman coming out to Hells Bells and John Rocker sprinting out to the mound to "I Wanna Rock" during his pre-meltdown days.

 

My guess is that he doesn't get in.

When five years have passed Hoffman will no longer be the all-time saves leader. Mariano Rivera will be (maybe by a large margin). Many voters will hesitate to vote for the guy who is 2nd on the list when they did not vote for guys like Lee Smith or John Franco.

At this point of the afterglow of his retirement - the current SportsJournalists.com poll is exactly at 75% of people thinking he gets in (I voted yes). I'd guess that percentage will be below 75% after 5 years.

 

Hoffman is better than Smith or Franco. The raw number of saves is not the reason to put him in, sustained excellence at a position (albeit a fake one) where it is rare is. Franco & Smith were good for a long time, but not great.

 

Voters are smart enough to know how dominant Hoffman was for so long.

Also, I think Hoffman has 42 more saves than Rivera. Rivera will likely pass him, but Rivera is 41. I don't see him playing for more than 2-3 more years.

 

Believe it or not, the number nerds did, in fact, remember that teams play road games.

This is nearly as complicated as you are making it out to be. It's just ERA indexed to park-adjusted league average ERA.

When someone says "Look how good that guy's ERA was, and he did it in the AL in a hitter's park," they are doing the exact same thing ERA+ does.

The ballpark adjustment is very, very simple. To get park factor, you take the average runs in home games for that team (by both teams) and divide it by the road games. They usually take the three-year averages because those are more predictive and less volatile. So if Nats games average 11 runs per game at home and 10 runs per game on the road, then that's a park factor of 1.10. If the league average ERA was 4.00, the park-adjusted league average for a Nats pitcher would be 4.20 (because you only apply half the park factor because of road games).

A pitcher with a 2.10 ERA in that park would have an ERA+ of 200, the same ERA+ as a pitcher with a 2.00 ERA in a league-average park, as would a pitcher with a 1.90 ERA in a pitcher's park where 10% fewer runs were scored.

It's not some magical stat. It's just a quick and more accurate way of doing the adjustments for park and era that people already do when they consider a pitcher.

 

I think now that Gossage and Sutter are in Cooperstown, they can be joined by Rivera and Hoffman, and then they don't need to let another reliever in for a long, long, long time...

Eckersley and (hopefully) Smoltz don't count.