Monday, April 11, 2011

MLB Trivia: Stacking saves

Recently retired Trevor Hoffman is the major league's all-time leader in saves with 601. But among active pitchers, can you name which three have the most career saves?

6 comments:

Pauly said...

For sure:
Rivera

Probably:
Gregg
Nathan
Valverde

Greg McConnell said...

Close with Valverde and Nathan. But surprisingly neither of those guys makes the top 3. (Hint: The two guys that you're missing both have the same first name.)

Chairman said...

Mo's the easiest one. We'll also assume that Billy Wagner's officially retired, and doesn't count.

I saw the hint, to confirm, but I was already leaning toward my guys (UPL) K-Rod and (real-life) Cordero, even without it. Would have counted the years back with Nathan (who started sort of old, and didn't get much done in is SF days).

Pauly - Kevin Gregg? Really?

Greg McConnell said...

OK, guys, I can't believe the timing of this. Yesterday during the day the answer according to Baseball Reference was 1) Mariano Rivera 2) Francisco Cordero 3) Francisco Rodriguez. But something happened last night that changed the equation: Jason Isringhausen returned to the Mets.

So my hint turns out to be wrong. Sorry about that. According to Baseball Reference, the answer is now: 1) Mariano Rivera 2) Jason Isringhausen 3) Francisco Cordero.

But who knows, the answer could change any minute if you see a Trevor Hoffman or Billy Wagner signing....

Chairman said...

Yep - Izzy's back. Didn't even think about him on that list. Good for him. He had that run of really tough luck early on (along with Paul Wilson and Bill Pulsipher), and then became a really good reliever. Nice to see him back.

Greg McConnell said...

Yeah, I remember that highly touted group for the Mets back in the mid-90s. I would have been able to name Izzy and Pulsipher, but I had forgotten that Paul Wilson was the third guy. Right now I just read up on them ("Generation K") at Wikipedia.

In some ways, reading about Pulsipher kinda reminds me of Mark Prior. Granted, Prior had more success early. But now Prior is trying to get back to the bigs and thus far it just hasn't worked out.

Can you imagine if Izzy, Pulsipher, and Wilson had all met their full potential as aces? That would have made for some nice competition in the NL East with the Braves' Maddux/Smoltz/Glavine.