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I think one advantage Kimbrel has that will give him more weight is the amount of strikeouts. He will certainly pass Smith this year and has an outside chance of having more strikeouts than any reliever in way fewer games than Wilhelm and Gossage and they are both HoF'ers.
I think it's worth giving Kimbrel some major props so far. He has been far more dominant that I expected in the early going.
11 innings, a WHIP of 0.64.........striking out almost 14 per 9 is fantastic.
He has allowed 5 hits so far all season............all singles.
The run he allowed last night was off of a single and a 2 base error. The one blown save was off of a bloop hit, two steals, and a sac fly.
The bottom line is that opposing hitters haven't been squaring him up well at all yet and although he certainly won't be THIS dominant all year long he has far exceeded our expectations I think and man wouldn't it be nice to have a tricky decision about picking up his option for 2025 with Bautista also coming back.