Trevor Hoffman retires - is he a HOFer?

Turning down a chance for a symbolic last appearance in a San Diego Padres uniform all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman has done what has been expected and officially retired.

Is he a Hall of Famer? Besides the saves numbers?

Well, he's got an ERA+ of 141, and, even more impressive, a WHIP of just 1.058. For starters, my minimum cutoffs are ERA+ of at least 110 and WHIP of 1.25 or less.

But, given that the modern closer is a one-inning person hugely unlikely to face the same person twice in a game, should we tighten these numbers?

Say, 115 on the ERA+ and 1.22 on WHIP? (That said, Lee Smith doesn't meet my current cutoff for pitchers in general on WHIP, one reason I don't consider him a HOFer.)

A blown-saves percentage would be nice to sort out relievers. Just a blown-save number would be nice from Baseball-Reference.com. (Well, Dr. Doom points out what I have seen before, the "More Stats" tab, with both blown saves and save percentage under reliever-only stats.)

That said, 89 percent save percentage for Hoffman vs. 82 percent for Smith. (Dennis Eckersley is at 85 percent, John Smoltz at 91 percent in his short relief stint, and Mariano Rivera also at 91 percent, but with far better ERA+ and WHIP than even Hoffman.)

Anyway, what other criteria would you use to judge closers? More emphasis on K/BB than starters? K/9 innings?

On Hoffman, I think he is a HOFer. (And, he is better than Smith on those other two criteria, the baseline criteria for all pitchers, in my book.)

That said, I think that given today's specialized closers, we can't go too much below Hoffman on HOF-level standards for today. So, besides him and Rivera, one other pitcher may qualify, and that's Billy Wagner. His save percentage is only 86 percent, but his ERA+ and WHIP are closer to Rivera than to Hoffman. Being a lefty, that's even more notable.