The results of the voting for the 2025 inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame won’t be announced until January 21, but it seems a certainty that relief pitcher Billy Wagner will finally be elected in his final year of eligibility. He came within a few votes last year to receive the required 75%. Why has it taken so long for a legitimate candidate like Wagner? Are relief pitchers being overlooked in deference to starting pitchers? Are relief pitchers undervalued in the game?

Billy Wagner pitched in the majors from 1995 to 2010, primarily for the Houston Astros (nine seasons). His career numbers were superb. He finished with a 2.31 ERA, 0.998 WHIP and 422 saves in 853 appearances. He averaged 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings. His ERA+ was 187. He finished fourth and sixth in voting for the Cy Young Award. He was a seven-time All-Star.

What is it about his record that hasn’t qualified him for a bronze plaque in Cooperstown, from the first year he was eligible? There must have been reasons.

Perhaps he didn’t have a classic mustache like Rollie Fingers or Goose Gossage? Perhaps he didn’t have an iconic walk-in song (Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”) from the bullpen like Mariano Rivera, or the menacing stare on the mound like Lee Smith, a six-foot-five, 220-pound beast. (Of course, I’m being facetious.)

Somehow, Wagner slipped under the radar for notoriety during his career. Hall of Fame relief pitchers like Rivera, Fingers, Gossage, Dennis Eckersley, and Bruce Sutter developed popular personas in addition to being superior closers on the field. If Wagner had been more newsworthy or outspoken, would he have gotten more attention for the Hall sooner? If he had opportunities to pitch more during the postseason, would he have garnered more recognition?

I think Wagner, like many other proficient relievers, has suffered from a stigma that most of the baseball writers (who are the official voters on the Hall candidates) haven’t valued relief pitchers’ contributions and impact on the game, except for the most elite ones. The analogy for position players would be comparable to the writers passing up their votes for superstars not named Ruth, Gehrig, Mays or Mantle.

Hoyt Wilhelm was the first relief pitcher to be elected to the Hall of Fame in 1985. He was followed by Fingers (1992), Eckersley (2004), Bruce Sutter (2006), Gossage (2008), Trevor Hoffman (2018), Rivera (2019) and Smith (2019). That’s only eight out of a total of 274 players from the various eras and positions who are currently in the Hall.

And what about reliever Francisco Rodriguez who’s also on the ballot this year for the third time? His stats aren’t that far behind Wagner’s—2.86 ERA and 437 saves in 948 appearances. He averaged 10.5 strikeouts per game and boasted a 148 ERA+. Of the current Hall of Fame relievers, only Rivera’s and Hoffman’s numbers exceed Rodriguez’s. Yet he received only 7.8% of the required 75% minimum votes in his second year of eligibility.

Dan Quisenberry and John Franco are past relievers who deserved more consideration, but they never made it past their first year of eligibility, receiving less than 5% of the votes. Then there’s Roy Face, Sparky Lyle, Jeff Reardon, Troy Percival, John Wetteland, Joe Nathan, Jonathan Papelbon, and a few others who were top relievers during their respective eras. Were all of these all-stars victims of the lack of appreciation for the reliever role?

From 1976 to 2012, there was an annual post-season award for the top reliever in each league, called “Fireman of the Year.” The winners were heralded as the best relief pitchers in the game. But that award is no longer available and possibly contributes to the lack of recognition relief pitchers currently get.

If Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman are the standard for relievers to get into the Hall, there won’t be many new inductees either.

With the current strategies for using relievers in games, it’s plausible there will even be less consideration in the future for relief specialists to get into the Hall. The number of saves by relief pitchers used to be one of the key metrics for relievers. But the “closer” role has been watered down somewhat, as many managers resort to multiple pitchers in the final inning depending on game situations. Except for Cleveland Guardians All-Star reliever Emmanual Clase, no one has recorded more than 40 saves in a season since 2018.

And now with most relievers focused on throwing into the high 90s, they’re going to flame out before they put in a substantial number of seasons to be considered for Hall election. The exception is 36-year-old, 15-year veteran Aroldis Chapman, who still consistently hits 100 mph, including a 105-mph pitch last season.

Looking ahead a few years, there’s a reasonable chance veterans Kenley Jansen and Craig Kimbrel will get the call for induction. But after that, don’t bet on others.