Mariano Rivera was the greatest regular-season reliever of all time and the greatest postseason reliever of all time. That's why he's a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Simple enough.
But Bill James' old line about Rickey Henderson -- "If you could split him in two, you'd have two Hall of Famers" -- got us wondering: If Mariano Rivera had never thrown a postseason pitch, would he still have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer? And, similarly, if he'd somehow never thrown a regular-season pitch, would he still have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer?
We think we can answer these questions, which -- considering this article made it to print -- are almost certainly going to be answered "yes.