SAN DIEGO _ Hells Bells, when did baseball become so complicated?
Take Trevor Hoffman's career, and what to make of it.
There's a simple case that makes sense to me.
A closer, Hoffman was almost certain to secure the victory for his team. He maintained his high-wire act for an extraordinary number of years.
So, put him in the Hall of Fame, where he'll be inducted Sunday.
On the other hand, it wasn't a baseball crime that it took Hoffman three ballots to get his bronze bust.
It's the save stat that muddied the waters, and evolving statistics that have punctured a few myths about the importance of closers.
Back to the simple truth.
When Hoffman trotted from the bullpen, the opponent was all but doomed, month after month, year after year.
His save percentage of 88.8 ranks second among all pitchers with at least 400 saves.
No one piled up 400 or 500 saves faster. He joined Mariano Rivera, a no-brainer selection for the Hall, as the only pitcher with nine seasons of 40 saves.
Yet, isn't the save a gimmick stat?
Hoffman himself touted the teammates who got outs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.
Setup relievers sometimes have more to do with winning the game.
A save-basher is former Blue Jays executive Keith Law, a longtime analyst with ESPN.
"Hoffman might be the ultimate example of a guy getting overrated," Law wrote in 2010, "because of some moronic accounting statistic that has done untold harm to the game since it was invented to assign inordinate value to getting THREE FREAKING OUTS at a certain time in the game," he wrote.
A year later Law called the save "an ill-thought-out stat that somehow became canon and now is a way to compensate players."
