The purpose of this page is to compare Mariano Rivera with some of the better relievers in the history of baseball. Of the ones listed, only 4 (they are
underlined) are in the Hall of Fame (Rollie Fingers, Hoyt Wilhelm, Bruce Sutter and Dennis Eckersley). Eckersley spent part of his career as a starting pitcher, as well, so some of his numbers are larger because of that.
This is not to say that Mo is better than any of these guys, neccessarily. It is ordered by the ERA+ stat. This stat measures the difference of a pitchers real ERA from the average ERA in the MLB in that particular season. The higher the stat is, the larger the difference and the better that that pitchers season was, ERA wise. So, this page is basically comparing the career adjusted ERAs of these players.
Pitcher Comparison
Glossary
Name Seasons ERA+ W L S G GS GF IP HR BFP ERA
-----------+---------+----+---+---+---+----+---+---+------+---+-----+----
Rivera 1995-2007 194 62 44 443 720 10 658 953.0 49 3836 2.35
Wagner 1995-2007 180 39 36 358 720 0 603 771.0 72 3085 2.40
Percival 1995-2007 154 33 41 324 639 1 498 651.7 73 2669 3.02
Hoffman 1993-2007 147 53 60 524 882 0 732 942.7 82 3793 2.73
Wilhelm 1952-1972 146 143 122 227 1070 52 651 2254.3 150 9164 2.52
Quisenberry 1979-1990 146 56 46 244 674 0 553 1043.3 59 4247 2.76
Franco 1984-2005 137 90 87 424 1119 0 774 1245.7 81 5312 2.89
Sutter 1976-1988 136 68 71 300 661 0 512 1042.3 77 4251 2.83
Smith 1980-1997 132 71 92 478 1022 6 802 1289.3 89 5387 3.03
Lyle 1967-1982 127 99 76 238 899 0 634 1390.3 84 5794 2.88
Gossage 1972-1994 126 124 107 310 1002 37 681 1809.3 119 7506 3.01
Myers 1985-1998 122 44 63 347 728 12 548 884.7 69 3744 3.19
Reardon 1979-1994 121 73 77 367 880 0 695 1132.3 109 4720 3.16
Fingers 1968-1985 119 114 118 341 944 37 709 1701.3 123 6942 2.90
Eckersley 1975-1998 116 197 171 390 1071 361 577 3285.7 347 13534 3.50
Righetti 1979-1995 114 82 79 252 718 89 474 1403.7 95 5988 3.46
-----------+---------+----+---+---+---+----+---+---+------+---+-----+----
Special thanks to
Baseball-Reference.com for the data.
