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The San Francisco Giants drafted Joe Nathan in 1995 from State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was only the second player ever taken from his school, and he was initially drafted as a shortstop. Shoulder surgery forced him to miss the entire 1996 season, and it pushed him to the mound. He spent his first three professional seasons as a starter in the Giants organization, but he struggled with ERAs over 6.00 at Double-A and over 5.50 at Triple-A. It was hardly the perfect start to a Hall of Fame resume.
Even with his struggles, the Giants pushed him to the big leagues in 1999. He’d bounce between the majors and the minors for multiple seasons. In his first three big-league seasons, he posted a 4.61 ERA and a 1.51 WHIP in 187 1/3 innings. Nathan wasn’t successful as a starter, so the Giants moved him to the bullpen at age-28.
Entering the 2003 season, Baseball Prospectus said, “Nathan continued his comeback from shoulder surgery in 2000, with a year that was impressive only relative to the year before. He was never a great prospect, even before the shoulder woes, but he could be a serviceable innings-eater in middle relief.” During the 2003 season, he made 78 relief appearances and posted a 2.96 ERA with a 1.06 WHIP and 83 strikeouts in 79 innings. It was a marked improvement, and the Minnesota Twins took notice.
The Twins acquired Nathan In one of the most famous trades in team history as he was included with Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser for A.J. Pierzynski. Pierzynski was an All-Star catcher in the prime of his career with multiple years of team control. Nathan, Liriano, and Bonser all had questions surrounding their injury history and previous performance, so it wasn’t initially as lopsided of a trade as it looks in retrospect.
Following the trade, Nathan immediately became one of baseball’s best closers. He was a six-time All-Star, and he twice finished in the top-five of the AL Cy Young Award voting. He topped the 30-save mark in nine seasons, including accumulating 40 or more saves in four seasons. Among pitchers with at least 900 innings pitched, only Billy Wagner and Nolan Ryan have a lower hits per nine innings ratio.
Unfortunately for Nathan, relief pitchers are significantly underrepresented in Cooperstown. The current HOF relievers are Dennis Eckersley, Mariano Rivera, Hoyt Wilhelm, Rich Gossage, Lee Smith, Bruce Sutter, Trevor Hoffman, and Rollie Fingers. Billy Wagner is one player currently on the ballot that might be paving the way for Nathan to be enshrined. Last year, Wagner received 46.4% of the vote, up from the 10.5% he received back in 2017, his first year on the ballot.
Nathan compares well to Wagner and other relievers already elected to the Hall. According to JAWS, he ranks better than Sutter, Wagner, and Hoffman. FanGraphs writer and Hall of Fame expert Jay Jaffe developed the JAWS system, but he prefers a different method for measuring relievers. Nathan ranks in the top-7 all-time relief pitchers using a hybrid average of WAR, WPA, and situational or context-neutral wins (WPA/LI).
Before his age-29 season, Nathan had failed as a shortstop and a starting pitcher. From that point forward, he was one of the most dominant relief pitchers in baseball history. His resume alone should put him into the Cooperstown conversation.
Nathan will have an uphill climb to enshrinement, but relievers should have a better chance in the years ahead. Do you think he has a strong enough case for Cooperstown? Leave a COMMENT and start the discussion.
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