Jack Curry: you're stupid if you wouldn't vote Mariano Rivera into the Hall of Fame. I guess I'm stupid.

If Hall of Fame voters make Mariano Rivera the first ever unanimous selection in 2019 as Jack Curry advocates, that will seal Rivera as the most overrated "player" in at least half a century.

Curry is a former reporter for The New York Times who has worked for the Yankees in recent years as a TV analyst who never noticed a single mistake by Yankee general manager Brian Cashman. During Sunday's exhibition game against the Mets Curry interviewed Rivera and then later made his comment that any of his fellow Hall of Fame voters who did not vote for Rivera, were stupid. He was very clear. Stupid.

This is especially odd since Rivera is renowned for his VERY specific role as a closer, i.e., a relief pitcher who:
- starts the 9th inning
- with a lead
- almost always pitches only the 9th inning.

That role is pretty recent, starting around 1990 with relief pitcher Dennis Eckersley and his Oakland manager Tony LaRussa. They were inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2004 and 2014 respectively.

So Rivera is the all time great for a role that didn't really exist more than 30 years ago. And it's increasingly being diminished by the more avant-garde self appointed smarties. So why would Curry be so insistent? Curry may be somewhat compromised by his relationship with the Yankees but let's consider his assertion on its merits.

Pitchers are not players. Pitchers are part time participants and relief pitchers are part time pitchers, none more than closers, the one inning wonders.

Rivera pitched only a few more career innings than Babe Ruth: 1,283 to 1,221. Sandy Koufax had a short career but he had 2,324 innings, more than 1,000 more than Rivera. Koufax had seasons with these innings: 355, 323, 311.

In 1996 Rivera pitched his most innings: 107 in 61 appearances in his one season as a set up man. Next most innings: 80 in 2001 when Rivera had the biggest blown save in baseball history: World Series game seven: Rivera blew both the lead and the game in the bottom of the 9th to Arizona.

In his 18 "full" seasons the number of times Rivera pitched these innings:
- 80 or more: 2
- 70-79: 8
- 60-69: 7
and another with 46.

So in none of his seasons did Rivera even come close to qualifying for the league lead in Earned Run Average (ERA): 162 innings. Would you vote for a batter who never had the 502 Plate Appearances to qualify for leading in Batting Average in a season?

In one 162 game season a team will pitch about (9*162) 1,458 innings. Multiply that by 18 for the number of seasons that Rivera pitched: 26,244. Now divide Rivera's innings by that:

1,283/((9*162)*18) = .0488 or about 4.9%

Mariano Rivera pitched in less than five percent of his team's innings. How the heck much could he possibly contribute in so few innings?

Teammate Derek Jeter played shortstop for the Yankees for 18 full seasons. Jeter had this number of plate appearances (PA) in those 18 seasons:

12,602 - (51+73) = 12,478

If Jeter had 4.2 PA in all 162 games in a season times 18:

( (4.2*162) = 680 ) * 18 = 12,247

Jeter nails a reasonable number of expected PA.

I've long held that Rivera could have contributed at least as much by pitching the first inning in every other game. That would be 81 appearances and 81 innings. At least then he would be pitching to the top of the order, not a random part of the batting order.

In the short time since he last pitched in 2013 thinking has shifted back towards some common sense use of relief pitchers. If Rivera were pitching in 2018, he might actually be expected to enter a game in other than the ninth inning ... and with runners on base!

Jack Curry should get up to date in his thinking and consider just how much Rivera actually contributed. Rivera simply didn't pitch very much.

I may expand on this in a future post but consider whether you would prefer for a season:
- Rivera pitching 70 innings in 70 appearances
or
- Barry Bonds pinch hitting in all 162 games; not 2001 when he hit 73 home runs so as not to bias this, maybe 2004 when Bonds had On Base average .609.

If Bonds offends you, substitute Ted Williams 1941, On Base .553.

Rivera or Bonds/Williams? Pick one, Jack Curry. Show us how much of a slam dunk Hall of Famer Rivera is.

I have a tough enough time considering starting pitchers for the Hall of Fame. I would not vote for any relief pitcher. Even as ill defined as the Hall of Fame is, it cannot be that they intended for a pitcher to qualify as a ten year veteran with 1,300 innings. It's unimaginable that they expected an 18 year veteran with 1,300 innings to be seriously considered.

Should Mariano Rivera be elected to the Hall of Fame? Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Mariano Rivera, the last closer. Thursday, July 13, 2017