San Francisco Giants: Barry Bonds and My IBWAA Hall of Fame Ballot

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Jul 12, 2016; San Diego, CA, USA; San Diego Padres former closer Trevor Hoffman throws out the ceremonial first pitch before the 2016 MLB All Star Game at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports /

Trevor Hoffman
28 Career WAR, 601 saves, 1133 strikeouts, 2.87 ERA, 3.08 FIP, 141 ERA+

Trevor Hoffman is not Mariano Rivera, but he is the greatest closer in the National League and the second best closer of all-time. He also revolutionized the changeup in the same way Rivera revolutionized the cutter and Bruce Sutter did the same for the split finger fastball. To me, you can’t have a Hall of Fame without the best players at each position and you can’t talk about closers without mentioning Hoffman. You also can’t minimize the importance of his changeup. Entire staffs started throwing more changeups after seeing its effectiveness from Hoffman. To see a closer use an off-speed pitch when most pitchers closed games with mostly fastballs and hard breaking pitches changed the game. He also didn’t walk anyone. Hoffman faced 4388 batters and walked 307 and 58 of those were intentional. To me, there isn’t much more that needs to be said about Hoffman’s place in history.