Bob Cook

Trevor Hoffman set the major-league career record for saves by getting his 479th. Unfortunately for him, being the all-time saver has a level of juice somewhere between holding the major-league career record for doubles (Tris Speaker) and holding the major-league career record for most sunflower seeds spat (being researched by the Elias Sports Bureau as you read this).

The lack of excitement, outside his San Diego Padres locker room and fan base, is not Hoffman’s fault. He does his job and does it well. The problem is his job itself.

Although every team wants to have a shutdown closer such as Hoffman, the ethereal world of baseball immortality is not so sure about his ilk.

After all, for eight innings every player, including the presumably substandard (compared to the closer) middle relievers, sweats to give his team a slim lead. Then the closer comes la-di-da-ing in from the bullpen to start the ninth and get the glory, like the goal-line-specialist fullback who gets to fall in the end zone for the touchdown even though he watched while his teammates did all the work the rest of the drive.

In most major statistical categories, when you ascend to No. 1, you’ve knocked off a Hall of Famer or Famer-to-be. Lee Smith, the man whose record Hoffman beat, has gotten no more than 45 percent of the Hall of Fame vote — 75 percent is needed for induction — in his four years of eligibility.

With the lack of respect given to career save totals, Hoffman’s ultimate legacy might be less his nasty changeup and more his introducing the concept of hairy-chested closer entry music (AC/DC’s "Hells Bells," in Hoffman’s case) to the major leagues.

If saves alone got a reliever ultimate respect, Rollie Fingers’ quick entry into the Hall of Fame while No. 8 on the all-time saves list would serve as a marker for other closers. Yet Jeff Reardon and Randy Myers, sixth and seventh all-time in saves, didn’t even survive the minimum 25 votes — not percent, votes — on their first ballot, the same fate suffered by ninth-place John Wetteland.

It’s not just that the save has only been around since 1969, with the concept of the closer a fairly recent development, thus robbing relievers of the long, comparative statistical trail available to just about any other record chaser. And it’s not just that firestarters like Brad Lidge can still notch more than 30 saves in a season, or that someone as great as Smith could be shuffled to eight teams in an 18-year career.

It’s also how the job of closer has evolved — from a reliever who comes in during a pressure situation, to a specialist who pitches, at most, one inning, with as little pressure as possible.

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According to research gathered by Gabriel Schechter for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, before the 2006 season, 87.4 percent of Hoffman’s saves came when he pitched one inning or less — the most among seven Hall of Fame, Fame-eligible or active, Fame-worthy relievers.

But just about any closer usually enters in the least possible stressful situation — starting the ninth, with no runners on base, no momentum yet build for the inning. Schechter found that when Hoffman, the Yankees’ Mariano Rivera and Hall-of-Famer Dennis Eckersley worked the ninth inning and got the save, 95 percent of the time they started the inning. (This covers Eckersley as only a reliever, not his career as a starter.)

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To get an idea of how managers started babying their closers, Schechter noted that Smith, pre-1990, started the ninth inning for 27.2 percent of his saves, just behind Hall-of-Famer Bruce Sutter (22 percent). Fingers and not-yet-Hall-of-Famer Goose Gossage only got this peach situation for about one-sixth of their saves.