the hall of fame has such a weird relationship with closers/relievers. there are only 8 currently in, and a few have gotten in ~recently, as saves have only been an official stat since 1969.
here's something i came across i found interesting. consider this season:
6-6, 37 saves. 101ip, 110k, 32bb.
2.22 era, 1.89 fip, 0.977 whip, 188 era+
this was hall-of-famer bruce sutter's 1979 season. he won the nl cy young and finished 7th in the mvp. he had five top 6 cy young finishes and five top 10 mvp finishes, all with seasons like ^^ that. it wasn't his best season by any available metric. that's just what baseball was like then. he only played 12 seasons, and a couple at the end were pretty shitty.
he only played in one postseason, for the 1982 cardinals. notched 2 wins and 3 saves in the nlcs/ws. yes, playoffs were much different then. getting in was extremely difficult.
he was only the 4th reliever elected at the time, and finally got over 75% (76.3) on his 13th try. didn't get in on some weird veterans committee bullshit.
they've got to figure this shit out. part of me says you can't let everyone in, but the other part of me is perfectly ok with letting anyone with wagner's career stats in. bring 'em on.