It's become headline news across all sports outlets, primarily because Hoffman is the first to do it. You know what? Justin Miller became the first known pitcher to get the words "Billy Koch" tattooed on his bum, but that doesn't mean it should be splashing headlines across the nets. Randy Johnson passing Roger Clemens for second on the all-time strikeouts list is much more significant, but that only warranted a few sentences, eight paragraphs down in the game recap on Tuesday night. Why should the news of Hoffman reaching 500 saves be as important as it's been made out to be? Was someone else going to beat him to the punch? I thought the big deal was last year when Hoffman passed up Lee Smith. Did I miss something?The simple truth is that saves are an overrated statistic -- one of the most overrated stats in baseball. Here's all you need to know about saves: Armando Benitez has 289 of them, Danny Graves 182, some guy named Jose Jimenez grabbed 41 in a year, and it made an All-Star out of Danny Kolb and Mike MacDougal. I can name five pitchers in the Padres bullpen who have all been more effective than Hoffman this year -- Kevin Cameron, Heath Bell, Justin Hampson, Doug Brocail, and Scott Linebrink. But none of them get any recognition because you don't stamp an "S" next to their name in the boxscore. Moreover, any pitcher who can't get three outs before they allow three runs (which is all it takes to earn a save) doesn't belong in the big leagues. You follow me?
The fact that Trevor Hoffman has 500 of them tells me two things -- he's been closing for a long time, and done a very good job of it. And the fact that nobody else has done it reminds me that closers only became a serious part of the game around 25 years ago. That's it. I can still name you another reliever I would've preferred in my bullpen for every year he was in the majors. When you break it all down, Trevor Hoffman is a very good player whose only measuring stick is a vastly overrated, and highly insignificant statistic. I am impressed that Hoffman has been able to perform at such a high level for such a long period of time, especially when other relievers are blowing out arms or losing mental stability left and right. But it still doesn't change the fact that saves are an overrated statistic.
