Mariano Rivera Approaching 2nd Best Reliever of All Time

Actually, if he's pitched significantly higher leverage innings than Gossage, he may already be #2.

Here are all, or perhaps nearly all, the pitchers who were/are primarily relievers, who've gotten at least 27 PWAR (Pitchers' Wins Above replacement):

Rank	Reliever	PWAR
1	Hoyt Wilhelm	70
2	Goose Gossage	43
3	Mariano Rivera	42
4	Kent Tekulve	38
5	Rollie Fingers	35
6	John Franco	35
7	Lindy McDaniel	34
8	Lee Smith	34
9	Sparky Lyle	34
10	John Hiller	33
11	Dan Quisenberry	33
12	Stu Miller	32
13	Billy Wagner	31
14	Trevor Hoffman	31
15	Jesse Orosco	30
16	Gene Garber	30
17	Tug McGraw	29
18	Bruce Sutter	29
19	Doug Jones	29
20	Clay Carroll	29
21	Mike Marhsall	28
22	Mike Jackson	28
23	Don McMahon	27
24	Tom Henke	27

I guess counting post-season, Rivera's got to be second. If any baseball fan reading this hasn't run into my explanation of PWAR yet and doesn't want to search for it, I'll post it as a response to a comment.