Mariano Rivera moved past Trevor Hoffman on the all-time saves list this afternoon, throwing a 1-2-3 ninth inning against the Twins to close out a 6-4 victory and record his 602nd career save.
In general saves are an overrated and oftentimes silly stat and Rivera certainly didn’t need the record in order for people to realize what an amazing pitcher he’s been, but there’s definitely a nice symmetry to the best closer in baseball history being the all-time saves leader.
Here’s what the leaderboard now looks like:
Mariano Rivera 602
Trevor Hoffman 601
Lee Smith 478
John Franco 424
Billy Wagner 422
And no one else has 400.
Hoffman held the record for just one season, but Rivera will be atop the list for a long time. Francisco Cordero is second among all active pitchers with 323 saves and the highest total by someone under 30 years old is Francisco Rodriguez with 291.
Rivera will hold the record when he goes into Cooperstown and the way he’s pitching that might not be for a while. Today’s save was his 43rd of the season and Rivera has thrown 59 innings with a 1.98 ERA and 57/7 K/BB ratio. He’s as good as ever at age 41 and 700 saves seems possible, although 1,209 innings with a 2.21 ERA in the regular season and 140 innings with a 0.71 ERA in the postseason tells the story of his greatness even better than his save total.
