Wake Up With Billy Wagner's Last Career Save (2010)

The Hall of Fame class of 2018 doesn’t get announced until January 24, and I like the idea of highlighting guys on this year’s ballot who either won’t get in this year due to lack of support, or just won’t get in ever due to not having a good enough case to get elected. Yesterday, we talked about Scott Rolen, and today we’ll take a look at Billy Wagner. Out of the 155 ballots that have been made public, Wagner has appeared on just 10.7% of the ballots AKA he’s not getting in in 2018.

However, is there a case to be made for Wagner? Well, I happen to think so. Closers are tricky as it pertains to the Hall of Fame, because a guy like Trevor Hoffman is on his third try and he retired as the all-time saves leader. It’s certainly worth noting that Hoffman has appeared on 78.6% of the public ballots thus far, so he’ll get in either this year or in the coming years, but there’s something to be said about the fact that you can retire as the all-time saves leader and still not get in on the first ballot. It’s odd.

With Wagner, he’s sixth on the all-time saves list with 422 saves and has the most strikeouts ever for a left-handed reliever with 1,196. Aroldis Chapman isn’t even close with 705 strikeouts of his own.

Wagner also retired just two saves shy of John Franco for the all-time saves record by a left-handed reliever, only he did so in five less seasons. Kinda makes you wonder why Wagner hung up the spikes when he did, because at the age of 38, the lefty had a 1.43 ERA, a 0.87 WHIP, 37 saves, and 104 strikeouts in 69.1 innings to go along with his seventh All Star selection in 2010. By the way, his fastball was still averaging 96.30 MPH in his final season, while he was able to reach a max velocity of 100.30 MPH in that final year.

With this being his third year on the ballot, one might understand that he’s not going to get in before a guy like Hoffman. But I do hope that voters take a longer look at him in the coming years.