Major League Baseball will add two big touches of class to its top reliever award, with sources saying it plans to rename the annual honor for the best reliever in each league after brilliant all-time bullpen greats Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman.
The work perfectly for that given that each spent their entire careers in their respective leagues and given that they are 1-2 in career saves.
One quibble, though: can we occasionally name someone who isn’t a closer the best reliever in baseball? It happens, you know. A guy without a gaudy save total being the best relief pitcher. Even before the awards were named after closers, relief pitcher awards of various stripes have almost always gone to closers. Now, I presume, they will exclusively.