Trevor Hoffman finally closes it out

Nearly four hours before a late September 2009 game at Miller Park, a guy in cargo shorts with his flipped around backwards was barreling over the banks of the parking lot adjacent to the TV trucks on a skateboard. No, it’s not unusual to see a kid out on a skateboard catching air over the contours of a veritable sea of macadam, but this wasn’t just some kid.

This was Trevor Hoffman riding his skateboard outside of the ballpark in Milwaukee.

Certainly it was no surprise seeing Hoffman, the all-time major league saves leader and certain Hall of Famer, in such an informal setting. After all, I recall bumping into him one morning at a Starbucks in St. Louis, and while out for a run around the Sports Complex before a game at The Vet. Still, a 41-year old tooling around on a skateboard is a rarity even before one considers that he has saved more ballgames in baseball history.

If there was ever a more grounded and regular dude than Hoffman who will one day go to the Hall of Fame, few people have seen him shredding on his skateboard outside of Miller Park hours before pitching a perfect ninth inning for his 590^th save of his career.  

Hoffman was as real as they came, his former manager Bud Black told The New York Times.

“He can carry on a conversation with the owner of the club, and he can also talk with the clubhouse attendants and the ushers. He has such an ability to go across so many layers of people. In the simplest terms, he’s just an outstanding person.”

Ultimately, a person is measured not by numbers and records or silly awards, but by the way they treat others.

As Hoffman’s successor with the Padres Heath Bell told The New York Times:

“Usually with such great competitors, some guys are really cocky, some guys are all about the money or the fame, some guys don’t want any part of it, some guys are very shy. He wasn’t any of those things.” 

Nevertheless, after 18 seasons and a record 601 saves, Trevor Hoffman called it a career during a press conference in San Diego on Wednesday afternoon. Though he wasn’t as durable as his multi-inning closer predecessors, Goose Gossage or Bruce Sutter, it’s tough to argue against Hoffman standing at a podium (with Ken Griffey Jr.) in Cooperstown five years from now.

No, Hoffman wasn’t the first of the one-inning closers and he certainly didn’t reinvent it. Hell, he might not even be the best of the new-breed of closers considering Mariano Rivera has a remarkable success in the regular season and unparalleled greatness in the postseason. But for 18 seasons, save one for injury, Hoffman was uncannily consistent in a position where consistency is rare.

Consider this:

Hoffman got 552 of his saves with the Padres, which when put into perspective is impressive because the Phillies, as a team, had 587 saves during the same period. For perspective, Hoffman got nearly as many saves as 11 regular closers for the Phillies. During this span, Jose Mesa set the Phillies’ record for saves with 112, though that mark likely will be broken by Brad Lidge in 2011.

And in that case Lidge is the rarity for the Phillies in that he will be the team’s main closer for a fourth season. That has never happened.

Think of Hoffman’s save record this way… he had as many saves against the Los Angeles Dodgers (68) during his career as Rawley Eastwick saved in eight big league seasons. What’s the big deal about Rawley Eastwick, you ask? Well, the lefty who pitched for the Reds, Cardinals, Yankees and Phillies during his career, led the majors in saves in 1975 and 1976 for The Big Red Machine, often regarded as the best team in National League history. Certainly there were plenty of chances for Eastwick to close out games since those Reds clubs rate amongst the greatest of all time, just as Rivera has had a ton of chances saving games for the Yankees. But the 1976 Rolaids Relief Fireman of the Year just didn’t pile ‘em up the way Hoffman has.

Sure, Hoffman and Eastwick worked in different eras of baseball. Particularly now when roles are so ironclad in definition and save chances are much more prevalent, Hoffman has an advantage over pitchers that came before. Still, only Hoffman and Rivera have saved more than 500 games and no Hall of Famer (Dennis Eckersley) has saved more than 390 games.

Shoot, Hoffman has more than twice as many saves as Hall-of-Fame closer, Sutter.

So the question is, how did he do it? How did Hoffman put together epic saves seasons every year no matter what? How did he do it with just a changeup and a four-seamer that rarely (if ever) topped 90 mph? Hoffman wasn’t a soft thrower like Jamie Moyer but his pitch was a changeup that he turned to after he lost his fastball when he “jacked up my shoulder screwing around on the beach, throwing a Nerf football and playing volleyball.”

Hoffman was drafted by the Reds and spent his first two years of pro ball playing shortstop and committing 50 errors. However, when he was converted to pitcher, the Marlins saw enough of his arm to select him in the expansion draft. Just two months into his major league career he was sent to San Diego for Gary Sheffield in a deal where the Padres were looking to shed salary.

Error-prone shortstop to all-time saves leader, just like that.

Still, the opposition always knew what to expect. Yet somehow that high leg kick and loose motion from the stretch just got outs…

For 18 years.

So how has Hoffman lasted when others, often with more talent, do not?

“When you’re out there as a closer you want to get strikes and you want to get them quick," Hoffman said during his press conference. “Sometimes you don't want to waste your whole repertoire to get into an out situation or a count. If you have pretty good conviction on two pitches, I think that's enough you want to deal with.”

Ultimately, Hoffman refused to waste his talent.

“Don't leave yourself questioning ‘what if I tried harder.’ I think it is being disciplined, having a plan,” he said during his farewell in San Diego.

Hoffman never recorded more than seven blown saves in any of his 18 seasons, and true to his consistency, he reached that high-water mark five times. But add it all up and Hoffman has 76 blown saves in 677 chances. In not nearly half as many seasons, Lidge has more than half the total of blown saves (43) as the all-time save king and Hoffman’s 29 saves against the Phillies in 54 appearances is more than Tug McGraw ever compiled in a single season.

More notably, the 40-save plateau has been reached just five times in 127 years of Phillies’ baseball. From 1996 to 2007, Hoffman saved at least 40 games nine times.

No, the closer position isn’t as hard-nosed as it once was. After all, Hoffman pitched 602 innings to get 601 saves. But if it’s easier to be a closer than it was, how come very few pitchers last long at it?

In the end, of course, Hoffman sounded like the unassuming guy hanging out at Starbucks or riding a skateboard in the parking lot before a game.

“The retirement word can be a bit scary,” he told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It kind of snuck up on me. I thought the announcement would be a little blurb at the bottom of the TV.

“How thankful I was to be able to put the uniform on and be a kid until I was 43. The most coveted title I carried was teammate.”

Of course how can a recap of Hoffman's career be complete without a look at the greatest entrance in baseball history...

World Series: Gotta get to Mo

PHILADELPHIA—It was back in Washington, probably in late August or early September when all we did was write about the proper way to use a relief pitcher and closers. Needless to say it was during one of Brad Lidge’s many rough patches of 2009 and there was a whole bunch of name dropping and philosophizing by the likes of me.

It wasn’t just willy-nilly name dropping, either. Oh sure, there was Eckersley, Sutter, Goose, Sparky Lyle, Mike Marshall and, of course, Fingers. But we also waxed on about Rawly Eastwick, Will McEnaney and the socialism of baseball with its division of labor and labels.

Labels, we decided, were bad. However, since the Phillies seem to have their label/labor issues figured out, there is no need to go overboard when discussing the best use of the so-called “closer.”

Besides, Mariano Rivera makes that Rawly Eastwick look like Will McEnaney.

Oh yes, Mariano Rivera. His two-inning save against the Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series on Thursday night might have been a record-breaker, but it wasn’t exactly a study in the efficiency of pitching. The Phillies made Rivera throw 39 pitches in order to get his 10th career save in the World Series. They also brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the eighth inning, and the tying run in the ninth.

These weren’t mere flash-flood rallies either. In the eighth with one out Rivera had to face Chase Utley with Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino on base. Utley had ripped two homers the night before to pace the Phillies to the win, but this time Rivera got the inning-ending double play.

Sure, the TV replays showed that Utley was safe, but it was significant enough that Rivera got Utley to hit into a double play considering the lefty hit into just five of them all year and has grounded into just 49 double plays in his entire career.

Indeed, the lefty hitting Utley got one of those cutters Rivera throws.

In the ninth Matt Stairs faced Rivera with two outs and a runner on with a chance to tie it. Stairs, as we know, has had some success against big-time closers, but this one ended just as it has so many times with Rivera.

As soon as Stairs made the final out of the game, the talk started. For instance, there are a few that suggested that even though the Phillies didn’t score against Rivera, they got to him a bit. They saw those 39 pitches, of course, and sent eight hitters to the plate in those two innings. The idea, as it’s been written and spoken, was that the Phillies got a good, long look at Rivera and will be ready for the next time.

“Now you have a game plan,” Rollins said. “We didn’t really see Mariano during the season. Spring training, he comes in, I’m out of the game. So, it’s a mystery. Like, we know what he’s going to do. It’s no surprise. It’s not a secret. You’re getting a cutter. All right. You’re getting another cutter. All right. Now here comes another one. That’s what makes him such a good pitcher, because he’s not trying to trick you. But when you see him, you figure out how much his ball is moving. Once you find your approach, you’ve got to be stubborn with it because he’s going to be stubborn with what he’s going to do to you.”

Manager Charlie Manuel was one of those who believed the Phillies’ long look at Rivera was beneficial.

“We can hit Rivera. We can hit any closer. We’ve proved that,” Manuel said. “He’s one of the best closers in baseball, if not the best. He’s very good. But I’ve seen our team handle good pitching and we’re definitely capable of scoring runs late in the game.”

Here’s the big question from all of this… what makes this time so different? What is it the Phillies get that no other team, for the last 15 years, couldn’t figure out?

What makes the Phillies so darned special?

Certainly the Phillies didn’t need to see 39 pitches to know all about Rivera. He throws the cutter and like Pedro Martinez, Rivera is a force of nature. Hitters know what he’s going to throw and when he’s going to throw it, but he still turns bats into kindling. The Phillies, like every other team in the world, send scouts to watch Rivera pitch, they’ve seen him on TV, during spring training and on a continuous loop on the monitors in the clubhouse.

Really, what makes those 39 pitches any different?

“I don't think you can be scared of anyone in baseball,” Victorino said. “You have to have the resiliency to say, ‘This guy is good. but we can beat him.’ His numbers show how good he is, but you can't go with that mindset because then you're beating yourself.”

OK, fine. But in the carefully choreographed world of relief pitching, Rivera is just like all those names we dropped earlier. Actually, check that… he’s better than them. That’s because in 21 World Series appearances—one fewer than Whitey Ford’s all-time record—Rivera has pitched 33 innings, finished 16 games and notched 10 saves.

Needless to say the 10 saves are the best in World Series history, with Fingers second with six. More notable, Rivera has saved four World Series games with multi-innings outings. Again, that’s another record.

So why is it that the Phillies think they can do what only one other team has done in 21 tries?

Maybe it was the 11-pitch at-bat from Rollins in the eighth where he earned a walk (like he really earned it) after falling behind in the count 1-and-2 and then fouling off five pitches. That’s the harbinger.

After all, the last time Rivera threw as many as 39 pitches when going for a two-inning save, the Red Sox rallied for a victory in Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS and began the greatest comeback in baseball history.