San Diego Padres: Is Trevor Hoffman Going to Retire?

There, I said it. I’m a die-hard Padres fan, having followed them as far back as I can remember, and I have no problem saying that Trevor Hoffman is done.

Unfortunately, most Padres fans are so blinded by loyalty and past performance (which explains why we have $20 million invested in Jim Edmonds and Brian Giles), that they refuse to let Hoffman call it quits.

Fans in major markets would be all over their star closer if he had submitted an end-of-season performance similar to Trevor’s. But in San Diego, he gets a standing ovation to start the season.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a nostalgic, and I appreciate the great seasons that Hoffman has had for the Pads. I appreciate his dedication to one team. In 16 years of service, all but 28 of his career games have been with the Padres. During his most dominant seasons, he was a sight to behold. Last year, though, was not fun to watch.

People argue that he saved 42 games last year, which was third most in the NL. Unfortunately, any hardcore fan knows that saves have become a very overrated statistic. Relief pitchers only come in for an inning, usually protecting fairly reasonable leads, so often a lot of these “saves” aren’t all that dramatic.

A perfect example of this argument is that the two players ahead of Hoffman in the saves category were Francisco Cordero and Jose Valverde, not exactly future Hall of Famers.

Furthermore, Hoffman posted a career low in strikeouts, one of the highest ERAs of his career, his second highest WHIP ever, five losses and seven blown saves.

Regardless of his numbers, to me the most important role a closer has is to save the game when it counts. Last year, the Padres had two games at the end of the season that required Hoffman to come in and get a save.

The first of these two games was against the Brewers at Milwaukee. Hoffman came into the top of the ninth to secure a 3-2 lead, a win would put the Padres in the playoffs. In what has become a typical Trevor outing, he struck out the first batter, gave up a double, then struck out the next batter. This left the tying run on second with two outs.

Hoffman has made a career out of thriving in these situations, and in years past I always felt confident that Hoffman would get the save. Watching this game on TV though, I came to the realization that not only was I not confident, I was openly expecting the next batter, Tony Gwynn Jr., to get that runner home.

Sure enough, Gwynn Jr. took a change-up from Hoffman and lined it to right field. The Brewers ended up winning the game in 11, and after that huge letdown the Pads came back the next day to lose.

Normally this wouldn’t be a huge deal, but in the crazy NL West these losses coincided with the ridiculous winning streak the Rockies were putting together. Sure enough, the two losses led to a one game matchup with Colorado to decide who was going to the playoffs.

The matchup against the Rockies was a worst-case scenario in my mind. Jake Peavy was going to start, which meant that if we did win, his schedule was going to be thrown off for the playoffs, not to mention he was not planning to be pitching again unless we were in the playoffs.

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