Trevor Hoffman: 'There Are No Easy Saves'

Filed under: Padres, MLB Hall of Fame

If you want to shrug off the save as an overrated statistic -- and many Hall of Fame voters do, by the looks of Lee Smith's support -- Trevor Hoffman has a message for you.

"There are no easy saves," Hoffman said Wednesday morning, a day after announcing his retirement. "There's never been an easy one, regardless of if it's one out and looks like a slam dunk, or if it's a multi-inning save."

Hoffman ought to know. He's got 601 of them, more than anyone else in baseball history. The debate of his Hall of Fame worthiness started the moment he officially retired. The fact that it's even a debate at all tells you that a significant segment of the baseball world still views the save as a gimmicky, overrated number.

Or else Smith -- the all-time leader before Hoffman -- would be in the Hall by now. Smith got 45.3 percent of the vote this year, which is where he's been holding steady for most of his time on the ballot.

 

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Source: http://mlb.fanhouse.com/2011/01/12/trevor-hoffman-there-are-no-easy-saves/

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