MLB: Top 20 closers in Major League Baseball history
Career Statistics:
- Games: 853
- Saves: 422
- Won-Loss Record: 47-40
- ERA: 2.31
- ERA+: 187
- FIP: 2.73
- WHIP: 0.998
- Innings: 903
- Strikeouts: 1,196
- Strikeout Percentage: 33.2%
- All-Star Appearances: 7
- World Series Championships: 0
- Awards: None
Arguably the greatest left-handed closer of all-time, Billy Wagner doesn’t always get the credit he deserves for an amazing career that included 422 saves, a 2.31 ERA, a microscopic 0.998 WHIP (which makes him the only pitcher on our list to allow fewer than one baserunner per inning throughout his entire career) and an eye-popping 33.2% strikeout rate.
Despite never leading his league in saves, only one left-handed reliever in the history of Major League Baseball recorded more saves than Billy the Kid.
Wagner’s best season was 1999, when he won the NL Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award with a 1.57 ERA and 39 saves in 66 games. The fireballer struck out a career-high 124 hitters that season in just 74.2 innings, made his first of seven All-Star teams, and finished fourth in the voting for the NL Cy Young Award.
The following season, Wagner was dreadful. But the 6.18 ERA he posted was the only earned run average of his career that was higher than 2.85. Wagner posted an ERA lower than 2.00 in six separate years, including his final big league season in 2010 as a 38-year old, when he made the All-Star team and saved 37 games for the Braves with a 1.73 ERA before retiring.
Next: 6. Lee Smith