Yankees: Boston writer refuses to vote Mariano Rivera into the Hall of Fame

Yankees legend Mariano Rivera is the greatest closer of all time and should be the first player in baseball history to be voted into the Hall of Fame unanimously. Unfortunately, one Boston sportswriter and Hall voter disagrees.

On January 22nd Rivera is going to be announced as a member of this year’s Hall of Fame class. There’s no doubt about that, the only question is whether or not the vote will be unanimous. If it were up to Bill Ballou of the Worcester, Mass., Telegram, the former Yankees closer would come short of perfection and on Saturday he wrote a 1,500-word column explaining why.

According to Ballou, he doesn’t value the closer position at all. Early on in his column titled Mariano Rivera’s not getting this writer’s Hall of Fame vote, he writes:

The Save — the baseball kind — is the lowest-hanging fruit on the game’s statistical tree. Closers are its naked emperors.

He used Red Sox reliever Craig Kimbrel to enhance his argument after he went 6-6 in save opportunities this past postseason despite pitching to a lackluster 5.91 ERA. Ballou argues that saves are easy to come by and that’s the reason Kimbrel was a perfect 6 for 6.

Kimbrel may have been perfect this offseason, but anyone who watched him pitch last October knows that he really struggled to succeed on the games biggest stage. A stage that Rivera thrived in for his entire career.

Rivera’s Career Postseason Numbers: 96 Games, 8-1, 0.70 ERA, 42 Saves, 110 K’s, 141 IP

Had the Yankees not had Mariano Rivera there’s no way they would’ve won five World Championships over the course of his career and anybody who disagrees just doesn’t know baseball. Sure Mo never pitched as many innings as a starter would but he usually went more than an inning during postseason play. He was a weapon unlike any other and I would argue that he may be the greatest postseason performer in the history of the game.

Ballou also talked about how Pedro Martinez once said he could’ve pitched for much longer in his career had he been a reliever. He used that quote to basically say part of the reason Rivera was able to save so many games is that he didn’t have a heavy workload because he usually only pitched one inning a game. Of Mo’s record holding 652 saves 119 of them were for more than an inning so that argument doesn’t really hold up.

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Regardless it’s not Rivera’s fault most of his saves were of the one inning variety because that comes with the territory of being a closer. When he came into the game he dominated at a rate nobody ever has before or ever will.

His 652 saves are not a product of being presented with a “clean inning” as Ballou states and his 2.21 ERA isn’t a product of a lighter workload. He posted those numbers because the opposition couldn’t touch him no matter what inning he pitched in or for how long.

I’m not going dive any deeper into the column because, to be honest, it’s really not worth mine or anyone else’s time. I don’t know if it’s anti-Yankee bias or if he’s just dying for attention. Whatever the case may be he’s wrong and he shouldn’t be allowed to vote for the Hall of Fame anymore if this is how he feels about Mo and closers in general.

Luckily Ballou did note later on in the column that instead of voting no for Rivera he’s just not going to mail in his vote at all so technically he could still be voted in unanimously. Hopefully, it happens, and if it doesn’t that’s a shame, but no matter what Mariano Rivera will always be known as the greatest closer of all time and for him, I’m sure that’s good enough.