Whicker: Unlikely big leaguer Wagner likely to be elected to Hall of Fame on Tuesday
Billy Wagner had 225 of his 422 big league saves with the Houston Astros.
January 15, 2025
By Mark Whicker
Canadian Baseball Network
Congratulations to the assembled major league scouts and Division I college recruiters who saw Tazewell High play baseball in the late 80s.
You were watching a Hall of Famer, unbeknownst to you.
There weren’t that many of you, of course. Tazewell is off to itself, in southwest Virginia. The school itself is “over a mountain,” as Billy Wagner used to say, from his real home in Tannersville, population 392. Wagner himself was, and is, 5-foot-10. He struck out 116 batters in 46 innings his senior year and didn’t get drafted by the pros, didn’t get a sniff from the collegians. He went to Ferrum College, a Division II school, and as a sophomore he averaged 19.1 strikeouts per nine innings. That would be hard to do against the Elks Club. Finally impossible to ignore, Wagner became a first-round draft choice of the Houston Astros.
On Tuesday Wagner probably will get the 75% majority that will get him into the Hall of Fame. It is his 10th and final year on the ballot. Wagner got 73.8% last year. It’s a testament to the awareness of the baseball writers, since Wagner is anything but a self-promoter, and he doesn’t have a legion of advocates. It’s been a DIY career.
“There hasn’t been a soul who taught me how to pitch,” he said.
An equal number of souls figured out how to hit him.
Wagner walked into major league games to the accompaniment of “Enter Sandman,” by Metallica. That anthem is more associated with Mariano Rivera. The difference between the two is Rivera’s spotless postseason record and Wagner’s October struggles. Otherwise Wagner’s plaque would be hanging today.
Wagner pitched 16 years and had 422 saves. He nailed down 86 percent of his opportunities. He was an All-Star for four different clubs (Houston, Philadelphia, the Mets and Atlanta). He was 38 in what the Braves knew would be his final season, and he saved 37 games, and struck out 104 in 69 innings.
What probably boosted Wagner’s Hall of Fame stock is the popularity of the WHIP statistic, which is Walks and Hits Per Innings Pitched. Baserunners, in other words. It’s a very useful calculation because it deals with real-world events, not cold abstractions.
Starting pitchers can permit baserunners and negotiate their way around them. Giving up a run in an early inning usually isn’t fatal. For closers like Wagner, it’s different. Normally they come in with a one-run lead. If they walk the leadoff man, clouds gather. Most closers have poor pickoff moves. They are programmed to pitch on red-alert. They also pitch on adrenalin, with a limited number of bullets. Men on base can empty their chamber in a hurry.
Among pitchers with 1,000 or more innings, only Addie Joss, Ed Walsh and Jacob deGrom have a career WHIP of 1.000 or under. Wagner, who pitched 903 innings, has a WHIP of 0.998. With Houston in 1999, he had a WHIP of 0.777. That was the year he turned in 74 ⅔ innings and gave up 35 hits while he struck out 124. Those numbers simply don’t belong on the same line, and Wagner finished fourth in Cy Young voting.
Overall, Wagner gave up 601 hits in those 903 innings. That’s a lot of 1-2-3 ninth innings. That shortens games, turns up the urgency for the opposing team to scramble for a lead before Wagner starts warming up, and calms his own team. He struck out 33.2 percent of the batters he faced, and he ended his career with four consecutive Ks. Opposing batters had a batting average of .187.
Wagner was just as direct off the field. He said Houston declined to re-sign him because he was “a little too blunt” about the way things were going, but then he also criticized the focus of his Phillies’ teammates and didn’t like it when he saw certain Mets hiding from reporters when things went bad.
“Not everyone is going to like Billy Wagner,” he said, but most teammates did. He drove a big truck and he dressed like a cowboy and he could handle a blown save as long as everyone else could. Although he began to favor the slider in his sunset years, Wagner basically left the game the way he greeted it, frontally and at high velocity.
Besides, no sane bettor would have put a cent on Wagner’s chances to even see a big-league stadium. His parents feuded, and when they split up Wagner was shuttled from relative to relative. He finally began living with his high school coach, and things began coming together. At Ferrum he was just an aimless thrower until Darren Hodges, a pitcher whom the Yankees had drafted, came by to work out. He advised Wagner to slow down his motion, planted some fundamentals, and Wagner was suddenly throwing mid-90s strikes.
As he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he built arm strength by throwing at the outline of a strike zone on the side of a barn.
“I didn’t have much to do,” he said. “I’d throw it as far as I could, run and get it, then throw it back as far as I could.”
There’s a resistance to the idea of closers these days. We’re told that “high leverage” situations in the sixth inning can be just as pivotal as the events of the ninth. Few of those analysts have trod to the mound to get outs 25 through 27, with no bailout. Fewer pitchers relish that stress. Wagner was a setup man for a while and had to admit it made for a better life.
“No pressure, just go out there and if you get in any trouble, here comes the closer,” he said. “I never had that feeling before.”
Today Wagner has a ranch near Charlottesville, Va., where he raises alpacas among other things, and his son Will made his MLB debut on August 14 with a three-hit game for the Blue Jays. It could be quite a Philadelphia weekend in Cooperstown this July. Dick Allen will enter the golden door, thanks to the Veterans Committee. Shortstop Jimmy Rollins won’t get enough votes this time, but when the writers get around to studying his case they might be persuaded someday.
It will also be a landmark weekend, with the near-certain induction of Ichiro Suzuki. Those who arrange the program should make sure Suzuki leads it off and Wagner finishes up, easy as 1-2-3.