Top 10 Closers of All Time
Here is a listing of the Top 10 Closers. These are not the top 10 all time saves leaders as I hold more weight for the pitchers who threw more than one inning in order to get a save in the modern closer (pre-Eckersley/LaRussa) era.
A a point of clarification, the number to the left of each player is their ranking on the all time saves list while the number in parenthesis is their current saves total as of this writing (this only affects Hoffman and Rivera).
1. Trevor Hoffman (583) – Almost 600 saves (should make it in 2010 is he stays healthy and doesn’t retire), even if most of them are just 1 inning long, is impressive. He’s also the younger brother of former Red Sox SS Glenn Hoffman.
2. Mariano Rivera (520) – One of the classiest closers our this generation and one of only two players to reach the 500 save mark.
3. Lee Smith (478) – Great character and one of only 3 players to reach the 400 save mark.
5. Dennis Eckersley (390) – Anyone who can be a starter for his first 12 seasons, have a 20 win season and still save 390 games deserves a top 10 listing, plus he’s a Hall of Famer.
7. Jeff Reardon (367) – Only the top 21 All Time Saves Leaders have reached the 300 save mark and Reardon is currently number 7 all time.
10. Rollie Fingers (341) – Hall of Fame closer who pitched multiple innings to record his saves and great mustache…enough said.
18. Goose Gossage (310) – Who ever looked forward to facing Gossage late in a game. He was downright scary to face and one of the few Hall of Fame closers, too.
21. Bruce Sutter (300) – May not be in the top 20, but he is a Hall of Fame closer (the first) and he pitched before the era of the one inning closer.
29. Sparky Lyle (238) – 6 season over 100 IP as a RP , 8 seasons over 90 IP as a RP.
31. Hoyt Wilhelm (227) – A Hall of Famer who had 8 seasons of over 100 IP as a RP, 10 seasons over 90 IP as a RP. Closers just don’t do that anymore!
Honorable mentions
51. Tug McGraw (180) – 5 season over 100 IP as a RP , 8 seasons over 90 IP as a RP. Closers just don’t do that anymore!
91. Dick Radatz (122) – in 7 seasons (1962-1969) & 4 of those years pitched in over 100 innings!
Who should be on this list who isn’t and who, in your opinion, doesn’t deserve to be on this list at all? Please let us know!
So how does a pitcher with 213 wins and 154 saves not make this list?
First, thanks for the comment!
Would that be the current Cardinals pitcher, john Smoltz?
Mostly because he was mostly a starter and only a closer for a few years.
Impressive!
But I’m not sure he’d be considered one of the top10 closers ever. If he played half his career as a closer then his numbers would be near Eck’s & we would have bumped someone from this list.
He should have been an Honorable Mention! I missed that one.
No John Franco? Most saves all-time by a left-handed pitcher. Lefty closers, dominant ones at least, are very hard to come by. There’s only 1 that’s actually CLOSING right now, that being Brian Fuentes, who isn’t even close to the caliber of elite. In the past there were more (guys like Lyle, Dave Righetti, John Rocker… ha), but Franco did his job the most. He pitched the most games in National League history, most saves by a lefty… he deserves to be in consideration for the top 10 by far, at least in my opinion.
Peter, good call on who I was referring to. However, for John to step from the starting roll and run three years as a closer, and amass the numbers he did, was impressive. Not to mention, the first year he did it, he was lights out.
Hi guys,
I thought I’d answer both of your questions in one comment.
Joe,
Thanks for your insight into one of the longest tenured lefty relief pitchers of all time. You also have Billy Wagner & Randy Myers also in the top 10. My admitted bias is with the one inning save and anyone who collected saves in that era.
Danny,
I just coultn’t bring myself to include Smoltz for just 3 season at the position, although I would have liked to. I have nothing for respect for him & his accomplishments. He’s a first ballot Hall of Famer in my eyes. Actually it was four years if you look closer into 2001 where he only started 5 of 36 games that year. If it wasn’t for those four years he’d probably have around 271 wins if you look at the 3 years before & after those 4 years in relief. That’s why I see him more as a starter.
This is not a list of the top ten closers of all time, it is just a list of who has the most saves in mlb history. If you knew anything about baseball, you would know mariano rivera has been a much better closer than hoffman. Rivera’s career era is a half run lower than hoffman’s, he’s been on a much bigger stage than hoffman (NY vs. SD is a big difference), and rivera has been nearly flawless in the playoffs helping the team win 4 world series titles.
Bobby. Thigpen.
Mo should be #1 because of his sick stats in the post season.
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What about The Quiz? 238 career saves and 5 relief pitcher of the year awards and not in the top 10?
Mo is hands down a better closer than Hoff, simply because he does what he does in the AL East facing better teams in the AL than teams SD faces. Plus you didn’t take into consideration post season #’s did you? Look at what Mo has done in the post season
Tom Henke. 311 career saves, maybe the most consistent contributor to the Blue Jays rise to two World Series victories in the ’90s.
Uh hello, Robb Nen?? Over 300 saves in 10 seasons. Took the Marlins/Giants to the World Series had 3 years of sub 2 ERA. Would be close to Hoffman in saves had he not gotten his career cut short by pitching in the World Series even though he was hurt. He sacrificed his arm so SF could have a shot at a championship and had a 0.00 ERA for the 02 World Series.
FYI – This list is in order of career saves (see ranking on the left of every players name).
Keep up the great debate you guys!
I had to google to remember his name, but “Iron Mike” Marshall ruled the roost impressively for a while. I remember being awed by his endurance at the time.
While googling Mike, Quiz also popped up (I remember thinking “who was that KC guy” just after reading your article).
This is the dumbest list ever. The dumbest article ever was your “Modern Day Use of Bullpen” story. How is Trevor Hoffman ahead of Mariano Rivera? In that “article” about bullpen you chastise the SAVE stat because of the cheapness of the 1-inning save. So you then put Hoffman on top of your list because he has the most saves?
He clearly is not the best closer ever. Ask the 1998 Padres after he blew up in Game 3 or in 2007 when he choked in the 1-game playoff. Hoffman hasn’t had that many big games to pitch in and yet he has managed to be the exact opposite of what he is during meaningless games in those situations.
Rivera is The Best Post Season Pitcher Ever… regardless of starter or reliever. And as far as the regular season goes, Rivera plays in the American League East… the toughest division for a pitcher. Hoffman plays in the inferior National League which plays to about .5 run per game lower in ERA.
This list is BS….Tom Henke….it seems that any player on the team up north never gets the respect they deserved. In his prime, he dominated hitters like no other in his era.
Before there was Mo there was Wetteland. Maybe not ahead of Mo or Hoff but should be on the list. His career ERA was under 3.00 and had 330 total saves and from Wiki, “Wetteland was awarded the Rolaids Reliever of the Decade, and earned the most saves of any pitcher during the 1990s…”
Dan Quisenberry
The Quiz is a clear miss here.
Honest question. Why is the basis of many of these picks innings pitched. This article is about closers, not starters, or even middle relievers. It just seems that innings pitched should be WAY LOW on the relevant stat spectrum.
What about Joe Nathan? 235 saves and counting…
I want to re-iterate how stupid this list is. If Rivera was less classy but had a mediocre brother in the bigs, would he have been ranked higher than Hoff?
So is it that Rivera’s classiness puts him over Lee Smith’s mere “great character?” Because these things really have a lot to do with closing baseball games. And no, I don’t think there was “enough said” about Rollie Fingers’ mustache. Can we expound upon how his mustache helped him with his K/9 ratio? or prevented inherited baserunners to score? I’d really be interested in how this all comes together.
Peter, it looks like you stirred a hornets nest with this list. Frankly, you can not please them all. However, for the ones that think the list “sucks”, I would like to see you post a list of the top ten closers of all time and get all ten right. When you do, you should also consider making your point on why they are on the list and why they are in the order they are. This would be better than trashing someone else’s post.
Just my opinion.
First,I knew this would stir up comments, but I didn’t expect this hornets nest. But hey, that’s what makes Baseball great! People have a passion for this sort of thing and I think that’s great! I would have hated to post this without a single comment. That would have been worse than anything anyone can write in my opinion.
Now, for those of you that didn’t like this list, please re-read this line which starts the second paragraph:
A a point of clarification, the number to the left of each player is their ranking on the all time saves list…
I did NOT put this in any order of one player is better than the next. That is why there isn’t a 1-10. What I did was just list my top selections out of the top 100 career save leaders & highlighted what I thought were some key stats or added what I thought were some neat/fun facts about the player. I purposely kept them in the order they appeared in on the top 100 career saves list so that it was more fair. Not wanting to pick one over the other.
Next, I didn’t account for post season stats because I thought Mo or Fingers or anyone else who was blessed enough to have consistently been on great teams would have an unfair advantage over guys who weren’t so lucky. Hey, it’s not their fault!
Scott, to answer your question about why innings pitched matters is because before the one inning save became so popular in the late 80’s, closers worked 2-3 and sometimes 4 or more innings to record their saves. When a RP goes that long they an not be expected to do that every day; therefore, I put more weight onto their save numbers. It was just my opinion.
Overall, I think this is mostly a great debate we have going on! Feel free to disagree with me, I expected it. Let’s just be respectful about it.
Thank you for responding to this with so much emotion. Play Ball!
By the way, thanks Danny! I don’t know you, but thanks for saying what you said.
Peter, you don’t know me? With all the stumbles that we share? It’s me, danniboi33.
I am hurt now.
Sorry Danny, I just didn’t recognize you as Danny Thornton. I only know you as danniboi33. That’s the problem with social networking sometimes.
Come on Pete… Smoltz was the most dominant closer during his stint in the bullpen! I’m not counting the roider from the Dodgers as an eligible player!
He most definitely was dominant in the 3 years he closed, but only 3 seasons of closing isn’t enough in my book to be added to the list of the 10 best closers ever.
That being said, what he did in 3 years was amazing!