Who are the top five closers of all time?

1. Mariano Rivera 2. Dennis Eckersley 3. Trevor Hoffman 4. Lee Smith 5. Rollie Fingers 6. Bruce Sutter 7. John Smoltz 8. Hoyt Wilhekm 9. Rich Goosage 10. Billy Wagner 11. John Franco 12. Troy Percival 13. Joe Nathan 14. Jonathan Pappleborn 15. Jeff Reardon

Mariano Rivera

Rollie Fingers

Lee Smith

Dennis Eckersley

Trevor Hoffman

1) Mariano Rivera

2) Goose Gossage

3) Lee Smith

4) Billy Wagner

5) Trevor Hoffman

Closers in particular or relief pitchers in general? The latter is more interesting to me.

Hoyt Wilhelm

Mariano Rivera

Rivera has primarily been a 9th inning pitcher who enters with a lead. Wilhelm pitched in a variety of innings, and typically entered the game when the starter was in trouble.It's hard to compare the two, but I'd consider them the two greatest relief pitchers in history.

Goose Gossage

Gossage is pretty generally considered the best relief pitcher not named Wilhelm or Rivera.

I'd probably go with Rollie Fingers and Billy Wagner for the last two slots.

I don't think Lee Smith belongs here. He got a lot of saves, and so did Trevor Hoffman, but I'm more concerned with run prevention than racking up lots of saves (one of the easier things to do in baseball).

There are five primary relief pitchers in the Hall, so we pretty much have to start with them: Eckersley, Fingers, Gossage, Sutter, and Wilhelm.

Rivera and Hoffman belong in a Top Five, though, so we toss Sutter (with little argument, I expect) and, hm, tough choice but I bump Fingers as well. Wilhelm is from a different era and threw the knuckler, so I am very reluctant to push him overboard.

Eck definitely belongs.

So: Eck, Gossage, Wilhelm, Rivera, Hoffman. That's a darn good group even if others do not agree with it completely. If any of these men should not be in the top five, they'll be in the second five.