Lee Smith’s Second Chance at the Hall of Fame

This past Monday, longtime relief pitcher Lee Smith headlined the list of 10 candidates nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame through the “second chance” process known as the “Today’s Game” Eras Committee, formerly known as the Veterans Committee.

A panel of 16 living Hall of Famers, baseball executives and media members will consider the candidacies of 6 players (including Smith), 3 managers and one former owner (George Steinbrenner).

Smith, who saved 478 games over 18 seasons for 8 different teams, recently completed a 15-year run on the BBWAA (Baseball Writers Association of America) ballot. In a voting process that requires 75% of the vote to be elected to the Hall of Fame, Smith earned as little as 30% and as much as 51% of the vote over those 15 years.

Lee Smith’s Slow and Painful Ride on the BBWAA Ballot

When Lee Smith first hit the writers’ ballot, for the Hall of Fame Class of 2003, his 478 career saves were the most in the history of baseball.

Smith was granted a 42% vote percentage, an impressive tally for a first-year candidate. By comparison, Bruce Sutter debuted with 24% of the vote in 1994; Rich Gossage got 33% in his first year on the ballot in 2000.

Smith (at 42.3%) actually got one vote more in 2003 than Gossage (42.1%), who was on the ballot for the 4th time. Sutter, in his 10th year, was at 53.6%.

Three years later (the 2006 vote), Sutter was in the Hall of Fame; Gossage had climbed to 64.6%; Smith trailed them both at 45.0%.

Two years after Sutter’s induction, Gossage climbed over the threshold and was a part of the Hall of Fame Class of 2008 while Smith continued to languish far behind at 43.2%.

In the four years that followed, Smith continued his tortoise-like progress towards the Hall of Fame, peaking at 50.6% in 2012. The 2013 ballot, however, began a cycle of super-stacked ballots in which voters had a hard time whittling their choices down to the maximum of 10.

The Stacked Ballots Arrive in 2013

In just 3 years (2013-2015), names like Bonds, Clemens, Sosa, Schilling, Biggio, Piazza, Maddux, Glavine, Thomas, Mussina, Johnson (Randy), Martinez (Pedro), and Smoltz joined the BBWAA party.

With so many new big names, plus holdover candidates Bagwell, McGriff and Martinez (Edgar), writers had a harder time finding room for Lee Smith with a 10-vote limit.

In Smith’s final two years on the ballot, he was joined by Trevor Hoffman, who’s 601 career saves made Smith’s 478 seem less significant.

Smith petered out with 34.2% of the vote in 2017, while Hoffman was inducted into the Hall in 2018 and will certainly be joined there by Mariano Rivera in 2019.

12 months ago, Jack Morris and Alan Trammell were given a “second chance” at the Hall of Fame through the the Eras Committee. Each former Tiger had spent 15 years on the BBWAA ballot without crossing the finish line.

Each player, when given another opportunity, with a smaller voting body that contained many of their peers, were elected into the Hall of Fame and inducted this past July.

Lee Smith is hoping to duplicate what Morris and Trammell achieved. He’ll find out on December 9th, then the Today’s Game Committees votes are revealed.

Cooperstown Cred: Lee Smith

• Career: 71-92, 3.03 ERA, 478 Saves (3rd most all-time)
• Career: 132 ERA+, 29.4 WAR (Wins Above Replacement)
• Converted 82% of his 581 career Save Opportunities
• 7-time All-Star
• Finished in the Top 10 of Cy Young voting 4 times
• Saved 25 or more games in 13 different seasons

(cover photo: Chicago Tribune)

In this piece, I’ll first briefly explain why most Hall of Fame observers (including this one) believe that Lee Smith will be elected to the Hall of Fame next month. After that, I will somewhat exhaustively tackle the case about whether he should be granted a Cooperstown plaque.

Why Lee Smith Will Likely Be a Hall of Famer in 2019

Just as Lee Smith was unlucky with the arrival of over a dozen vastly superior players in his final years on the BBWAA ballot, he is equally fortunate to be on a relatively weak 10-candidate ballot for the Today’s Game Committee.

The other five players on the Today’s Game ballot are first baseman Will Clark, outfielders Joe Carter and Albert Belle, designated hitter Harold Baines and pitcher Orel Hershiser. The highest BBWAA vote total any of these players ever received was 11% (Hershiser in 2006).

Although the 16 members of the Today’s Game Committee do not have to pay attention to or care about the votes a player received in the past with the BBWAA, history has shown than they do pay attention.

Gil Hodges is the only player in history who received at least 50% of the vote and didn’t eventually make the Hall of Fame later on through the previous incarnations of the Veterans Committee.

The four other candidates on the ballot are managers Lou Piniella, Davey Johnson and Charlie Manuel and former Yankees owner Steinbrenner. Manuel is an odd candidate who is only 64th on the career wins list for managers. Johnson and Steinbrenner have been on multiple Veterans Committee ballots in the past and gotten nowhere.

Based solely on the past history of the Veterans Committees, Piniella is the strongest returning candidate. He received 7 out of 16 votes in 2017, the year Bud Selig and John Schuerholz were elected to the Hall.

The point of this boring story is that Smith is the strongest of the three first time candidates through this process and the returning candidates have gotten virtually no support by prior committees. That augurs well to his chances at getting a plaque next summer.

Why Lee Smith’s Career Will Play Well with the Committee

This is purely speculative on my part, but I’m convinced that Lee Smith’s career will play better with the Today’s Game Committee than it did with the larger voting body of the BBWAA.

First and principally, Smith’s 478 career saves will be granted a lot of weight by a committee filled with many of his fellow players and managers.

One of the knocks against Smith’s Hall of Fame case (as we’ll see below) is that his “rate” stats were good but not great. There’s a feeling (that I’ve seen expressed by writers over the years) that Smith was merely the beneficiary of opportunity.

He was rarely one of the top 5 (or even top 10) relief pitchers in the game but simply a “proven closer” who kept getting save opportunities because of the reputation he had established early in his career.

Former players and managers will appreciate the fact that Smith was a reliable 9th inning option for a long period of time. As a player or manager, there’s nothing more devastating than blowing a 9th-inning lead.

From his SABR Bio, Smith said that Joe Torre once gave him the greatest compliment a closer could ever receive, telling him “Lee Smith is one of two relievers I never had to worry about, and the other is Mariano Rivera.”

It’s my opinion that Smith’s deserved reputation as a reliable (if not spectacular) closing option for 8 different teams over 18 years will be appreciated by this committee more than it was appreciated by the BBWAA.

Lee Smith belongs in the Hall of Fame, period… I really don’t understand why he’s not in…  Plus, he didn’t just do one inning. He started out doing two or three innings… Why are people not voting for him? What is the knock against him? C’mon, he led the world in saves before Mariano and Hoffman.

— Goose Gossage (Fireman, by Fran Zimniuch, 2010)

Finally, of course, as already stated, Smith is facing a relatively weak ballot. Many of the stronger candidates from the 1990’s and 2000’s are not eligible yet for the Today’s Game ballot (the rules require that a player be retired for 15 years before they become eligible for the Today’s Game ballot).

Now that we’ve handled the most important news, that Lee Smith is likely to make it into the Hall of Fame in 2019, let’s take a look at his career and go deeper into the numbers for the case for and against his induction into Cooperstown.

Some sections of the rest of this piece are culled from my History of Relief Pitching series published over a year ago.

Career Highlights

Lee Arthur Smith was born on December 4, 1957 in Jamestown, a small town in northern Louisiana about 35 miles east of Shreveport.

As a child, until he was 11 years old, he went to an all-black school. From his SABR Bio, after Louisiana integrated its schools in 1969, Smith had to cross picket lines of protesting students and parents to arrive at class.

Six times in his senior year in high school, all-white schools forfeited basketball games rather than complete against a team with a black player.

After his senior year, Smith had planned to play basketball at Northwestern State but (at the suggestion of Negro League legend and scout Buck O’Neil) he was drafted by the Chicago Cubs as a pitcher in the 2nd round of the 1975 player draft.

For a $50,000 signing bonus (plus $8,000 to pay for a future education), Smith signed with the Cubs.

The Heir to Sutter in Chicago

In Bruce Sutter’s final season in Chicago (1980), Lee Smith made his major league debut.

On the mound, Smith was a hard thrower and a bigger and taller version of Goose Gossage; at 6 foot 5, 220 pounds, he looked like he could have played linebacker or tight end in the NFL.

“There’s no doubt in my mind he’s the hardest thrower in the game,” said Cubs catcher Jody Davis. Catching Smith “was scary, very scary!” said Keith Moreland.  Dusty Baker of Los Angeles admitted, “I don’t run from anybody, but the opinion around the National League is that you’re in no real hurry to get to him.”

— From his SABR Bio (by Neal Poloncarz)

What made Smith scary in the minor leagues was that he was wild (he walked 213 batters in 259 innings in AA ball in 1978-79). It was in ’79 that he was converted from a starting pitcher to relief pitcher and he liked the opportunity to pitch as a “stopper.”

Cubs Closer

After his 1980 big league debut and his official rookie season as a set-up man, Smith became the Cubs’ closer in 1982 and achieved stardom the following year.

In 1983, Smith appeared in 66 games, went 103.1 innings, saved 29 games and posted a 1.65 ERA (adjusted for a 229 ERA+).

1984 was an off year for Lee Smith (a 3.65 ERA) but a great year for his team. It was Ryne Sandberg’s MVP season and the team acquired two excellent starting pitchers (Rick Sutcliffe and Dennis Eckersley) for the stretch run.

There was an enormous amount of excitement in Chicago for the Cubs’ first post-season appearance since 1945. Things got off to a great start for the Cubbies in the NLCS, with a 13-0 Game 1 rout over the San Diego Padres behind Sutcliffe.

Game 2 was closer but resulted in a 4-2 Chicago victory, with Smith coming out of the pen to get the final two outs and the save.

The Padres won Game 3 fairly easily before the epic Game 4. The Cubs were down 5-3 entering the top of the 8th inning but scored two runs off the Pads’ Gossage to tie the score at 5.

Smith came out of the pen, in the 5-5 tie, to pitch the 8th inning and, after a dribbler infield single and an error by Sandberg, got out of the inning. The Cubs loaded the bases in the top of the 9th but Craig Lefferts got out of that jam by getting Cubs’ third baseman Ron Cey to ground out to 2nd.

In the bottom of the 9th, Smith got Alan Wiggins on strikes to start the inning. Tony Gwynn followed with a single. Then, on the 2nd pitch of the next at bat, Steve Garvey hit a 2-run home run to deep right-center field to give the Padres the walk-off 7-5 win.

The Padres would go onto win Game 5 and advance to the World Series and the Chicago Cubs would have to wait another 32 years before getting back to the Fall Classic.

Final Years in Chicago

The ’84 Cubs were a one-hit wonder, dropping from 96 wins in ’84 to just 77 in 1985. Smith’s three seasons after the NLCS disaster were good, but not great.

If you take the 1984-87 seasons (which should have been the prime of his career), Smith’s adjusted ERA+ of 125 was just 10th best among all relief pitchers with at least 300 innings for those four years.

He was still piling up the saves and striking out over a batter per inning but a ERA of 3.24 over 4 years is not what you would expect from a future Hall of Fame closer.

Using a different metric, however, Smith fares better. Thanks to his high strikeout rate, Smith’s 10.0 WAR from ’84-’84 was third best (behind Dan Quisenberry and Dave Righetti).

Traded to Boston

After the ’87 season, Smith was traded to the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Al Nipper and Calvin Schiraldi, a fairly low haul for someone who was considered an elite relief ace. From his SABR Bio and Fran Zimniuch’s book Fireman: The Evolution of the Closer in Baseball, there were organizational concerns about his weight, thus the trade.

The deal to Boston did give Smith something he wanted, a chance to play for a winning team and the ’88 Sox were the champions of the A.L. East. Unfortunately, they ran into the juggernaut Oakland A’s and were swept in 4 games. Smith entered Game 2 in the 9th inning of a tie game and gave up the run that was the margin of victory.

Smith had a 2.80 ERA in his first season in Boston but just 3.57 ERA in 1989 and, in the off-season, the team decided to sign another closer (Jeff Reardon) to a free agent contract.

Reardon was coming off a World Series title in 1987 and an All-Star season in 1988 and, although he was two years older, the Sox decided that he was their guy. Smith was traded in May 1990 to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Renaissance years in St. Louis

Lee Smith pitched a little over 3 1/2 seasons in St. Louis (mostly for manager Joe Torre) and saved 160 games (out of 186 opportunities for an impressive 86% rate).

In St. Louis, freed for the first time from home ballparks named Wrigley and Fenway and armed with a new pitch (a forkball), Smith had his best campaign since 1983, finishing with a 2.06 ERA between his games with the Red Sox and Redbirds.

It was a mid-career renaissance that earned him three consecutive All-Star berths (out of his seven total), a 2nd place N.L. Cy Young vote in 1991 and a 4th place Cy Young vote in 1992. It was in those years that Smith earned Torre’s respect as the other closer in his managerial career that he “didn’t have to worry about” besides Mariano Rivera.

In 1992, both Smith and Reardon passed Rollie Fingers for the most saves in history, with Reardon finishing the season two ahead of Smith (357 to 355).

It didn’t take long for Smith to pass Reardon; he did it in his fourth appearance of the next season, on April 13th, 1993. Smith would remain the game’s all-time leader in saves until Sept 24, 2006, when he was passed by Trevor Hoffman.

Designated Closer for Hire

In 1993, with free agency looming and the Cards out of contention, Smith was dealt late in the season to the New York Yankees. After spending September in New York, Smith signed a one-year free agent contract with the Baltimore Orioles.

In the strike-shortened 1994 campaign, Smith led the majors with 33 saves, which was good enough to place him 5th in the A.L. Cy Young vote.

His last year as a “designated closer” was in 1995, when he saved 37 games (2nd in the A.L) with the California Angels. After a couple of middling partial seasons as a set-up man in Cincinnati and Montreal, Smith retired as a player in the spring of 1998 at the age of 40.

How Lee Smith Spanned Two Distinct Generations of Closers

Lee Smith is a unique Cooperstown candidate as a relief pitcher in that he spanned two eras, the “relief pitchers go multiple innings era” and the “closers just pitch the 9th inning era.”

For Smith, we’ll cut his career into two 9-year halves, the “multiple inning” half (1980-1988) and the “9th inning only” half (1989-1997).

By downloading his career game logs from Baseball Reference, we can see how his usage pattern shifted dramatically in the second half of his career, comparing how he was used in “clean” one-inning-to-get-the-save situations compared to all others.

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As a relief pitcher, Smith is a unique Hall of Fame candidate in that he began his career as a contemporary of Fingers, Gossage and Sutter (the multi-inning closers) and finished his career as a contemporary of Eckersley (who was a prototype one-inning closer).

Smith’s final years also intersected with the early years of the careers of mostly one-inning stoppers Rivera and Hoffman.

It’s a credit to the big right-hander that he was able to succeed in both eras of closer usage.

Lee Smith’s Hall of Fame Vote in Quicksand

For 13 years, 5 months and 11 days, Lee Smith was the all-time saves leader in Major League Baseball. When he hit the Hall of Fame ballot in December 2002, he had 56 more career saves than anybody else (John Franco had 422) and that was enough for Smith to get 42% of the vote.

Historically, a voting trajectory that starts with 42% in your first year traditionally ends with a plaque in Cooperstown. The only other player ever, incidentally, who debuted on the BBWAA ballot with over 40% of the vote and never made it into the Hall of Fame is Steve Garvey.

For perspective, Smith’s teammate with the Cubs (Ryne Sandberg) debuted on the same Hall of Fame ballot with 49% (just 7% more than Smith) and was in the Hall two years later.

The normal upward momentum never took shape for Smith. He stayed on the ballot for a full 15 years, never getting higher than 51% and never lower than 30%.

Why Smith Couldn’t Get Over the Hump

There are a few easily understood reasons why Smith couldn’t get over the 75% hump:

1. Smith’s second year on the ballot (2004) was Dennis Eckersley‘s first. Although Eckersley’s career save total (390) was significantly less than Smith’s 478, Eck also had a 12-year career as an effective starter, winning 151 games with a 3.67 ERA. He didn’t have a Cooperstown-caliber career as a starting pitcher but, when combined with his 12 years as a closer, a highly compelling and unique resume was created. Eckersley sailed into the Hall with 83% in 2004 while Smith, suffering by comparison, sagged to 37%.
2. As the years passed, Smith’s 478 saves no longer looked so remarkable. He was passed by both Hoffman and then Rivera, the gold standard of relief aces.
3. As we’ve seen, over a dozen superstar players clogged the Hall of Fame ballot so that many voters who might have wanted to vote for Smith simply couldn’t find room with a 10-man limit.

What if…

Lee Smith pitched 1,022 regular season games in his career (with four more in the post-season). He won 71 games and saved 478 more, all with a 3.03 ERA.

But sometimes, especially when you’re a relief pitcher, one game defines your career and, for Smith, Game 4 of the NLCS is that defining moment. What if he had gotten Garvey to hit into a double play and the Cubs went on to win the game?

What if the Cubs had then gone up to upset the mighty Detroit Tigers in the World Series and the iconic image of Smith’s career was him hugging catcher Jody Davis after a World Series win with fans going bonkers at Wrigley Field? Would he be in the Hall of Fame if that October script was a little bit different? I think that the answer might be “yes.”

Remember, Gossage was also a goat in the 1984 postseason. He blew the save in Game 4 that set the stage for Garvey’s game-winning blast. In addition, Gossage was on the mound for Kirk Gibson‘s Game 5 home run that sealed the Padres’ World Series defeat.

The difference is that Gossage already had his World Series ring, with the 1978 New York Yankees.

The Hall of Fame Case for Lee Smith

For over thirteen years (early in 1993 until close to the end of 2006, when he was passed by Trevor Hoffman), Lee Smith was the sport’s all-time leader in saves.

On 8 different occasions Smith was first or second in his league in saves.

Smith was a 7-time All-Star.

Four times he was in the Top 10 in the Cy Young Award balloting; in three other seasons he was in the Top 5.

He finished his career with a 3.03 ERA despite spending his first eleven seasons pitching half of his games in Wrigley Field or Fenway Park.

Smith never got hurt and, until his very last, he never had a bad year. For fourteen consecutive years he was entrusted with the precious final inning of his teams’ ballgames by fourteen different managers and not once did he fail to convert on at least 75% of those opportunities.

Using WAR (Wins Above Replacement), Smith’s career total of 29.4 is third best among relief pitchers in the last 50 years, behind only Rivera and Gossage. This ranking is for pitchers who logged at least 80% of their career appearances out of the bullpen.

Anyway, it sounds like I just laid out a pretty good case for a Hall of Fame plaque. As we’ve seen, a great number of BBWAA members (though not enough) agreed.

The Case Against Lee Smith for the Hall of Fame

Why is it that, despite his credentials, the majority of BBWAA voters didn’t consider Lee Smith a Hall of Famer?

The answer is that you have to go past his final totals and look instead at each season individually. Smith was very good for a long time but, in only one season (1983), was he truly great.

As we’ve seen, in that ’83 All-Star campaign, despite pitching for a bad Cubs team, Smith led the N.L. with 29 saves while posting a 1.65 ERA (park-adjusted for a 229 ERA+) in 103.1 innings. For his efforts, Smith finished 9th in the N.L. Cy Young Award voting.

Even in that great season, however, Smith had blemishes. He lost 10 games in relief and allowed 36% of all inherited runners to score.

Anyway, in those very early years, Smith very much looked like a Hall of Famer in the making. The problem is that Smith was never able to repeat the success of the 1983 campaign.

In 1984, the team was good enough to make the playoffs (for the first time in nearly 4 decades) despite a 3.65 ERA for their closer.

He spent three more years in Chicago (all with a ERA above 3.00) before the trade to the Boston Red Sox.

The Second Half of Lee Smith’s Career 

Smith pitched two full seasons with the Boston Red Sox before being traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in May 1990.

At the time of the trade, he was tied for sixth on the all-time saves list (with 238). He was 32 years old. There was no reason to think he was someone who would get any consideration for the Hall of Fame or that he wasn’t even halfway to his ultimate career save total of 478.

From the time of the trade in 1990 until he was dealt to the New York Yankees in August 1993, Smith piled up 160 saves (in 186 opportunities, for a solid conversion rate of 86%).

Smith led all of MLB with 47 saves (with a 2.34 ERA) in 1991, finishing 2nd in the N.L. Cy Young Award voting.

In 1992, Smith saved a N.L. best 43 games (with a 3.12 ERA) and was 4th in the Cy Young vote.

In 1994 (with Baltimore), he was 5th in the A.L. Cy Young vote, saving an ML-best 33 games (with a 3.29 ERA) in the strike-shortened season. Smith had one more big save season left (37 with the California Angels in 1995) before two final campaigns as a set-up man.

So, from 1990 to 1995, his age 32 to age 37 seasons, Smith saved 237 games, more than any other closer, including Eckersley, and three times was in the top 5 of his league’s Cy Young voting.

So, again, why NOT a Hall of Famer?

How Much Should We Weigh Lee Smith’s 478 Saves?

The answer to the question of why Lee Smith does not belong in the Hall of Fame is rooted in the folly of the save statistic as the sole means of measuring relief pitching greatness.

If you want to know who saved the most games in a given season, the answer almost always is the same pitcher who had the most opportunities. In 2008, Francisco Rodriguez set the all-time single-season record with 62 saves.

Why has nobody matched him since then, even though we’re deep in the era of the one-inning closer? The answer is that no pitcher since 2008 has had even as many as 62 save opportunities. Kind of tough to get 62 saves if you don’t get 62 save chances, don’t you think?

Yes, Lee Smith had the most saves from 1990 to 1995. That’s not insignificant but guess what? He also had the most save opportunities.

In baseball history, only Mariano Rivera and Trevor Hoffman saved more than Lee Smith’s 478 games. It should now not be surprising to learn that they are also the only two pitchers with more save opportunities in their careers than Smith had in his.

The Top Five Save-Getters from 1990-1995

The key to Lee Smith’s drive to 478 saves was the six years (1990-95) in which he piled up nearly half of them (237).

Take a look at the numbers for the five pitchers who had the most saves from 1990 to 1995.

Note: this chart includes the statistic WPA (Win Probability Added), which measures the impact of each pitcher’s games according to the leverage of the situation. For more details, see the Glossary.

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In this colorful chart, the statistics in green indicate when each listed closer was the best (among those five) in that category. The statistics in red indicate when that pitcher was worst in the category. Tom Henke has the most green (except for the raw save total); Smith has the most red (except of course for the raw save total).

It’s hard to reach any conclusion other than that Lee Smith was at best the 5th best relief pitcher from 1990 to ’95, despite all the saves.

Ranking the Top 10 Relief Pitchers Season by Season

Lee Smith was very good for a long time but he was rarely great. When I’m assessing the worthiness of a Hall of Fame candidate, I often look to see how many “Hall of Fame caliber seasons” a player had. In how many seasons was that player one of the top one, two or three at their position?

I went through the numbers of all relief pitcher seasons dating back to 1969, when MLB expanded from 20 to 24 teams and the leagues split into two divisions.

What I did during this research was go through the process of ranking the ten best relief pitchers per season. In doing so, I went through all relief pitchers’ ranks in eight different statistical categories, weighing some more than others. Essentially, I created an objective methodology but one that is subjective in terms of which statistics I used and how they were weighted.

In compiling these lists, I used eight different statistical metrics: Saves, ERA+ (to adjust for park effects), OPS+ (batters’ OPS adjusted for park effects), BAA (batting average against), WHIP (walks plus hits per 9 innings), SO/BB (strikeout to walk ratio), WAR (Wins Above Replacement) and WPA (Win Probability Added).

Remember, these are Cooperstown Cred subjective lists. However, if you go through the exercise yourself on the Play Index on Baseball Reference, I think you’ll find that my rankings are pretty accurate. The key here is that there are eight categories, not just saves, upon which we’re judging relief pitcher performance. Now, by including saves as a category, I am putting set-up men at a disadvantage against “designated closers.” This was done deliberately.

Currently, there are no set-up men in consideration for the Hall of Fame. I’m purposely giving the closers the statistical benefit of simply being the guy their teams turned to for closing out the games.

Anyway, I ranked every season in all eight categories from 1-to-10 (with minimum innings pitched requirements suitable to each season) and, below, have compiled the following list for the top 10 saves leaders of all-time, the existing Hall of Famers and Quisenberry, who has previously been a Veterans Committee candidate.

The chart below shows how many times each closer was the #1 relief pitcher in baseball (according my Cooperstown Cred rankings), how many times they were 2nd best, how many times 3rd best and how many overall top 5’s or top 10’s.

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Hold your mouse over the 1st place numbers to see which seasons Cooperstown Cred ranked each relief pitcher #1.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand: this chart, in a nutshell, reflects the reason why, in my opinion, Lee Smith was not a Hall of Fame relief  pitcher. For only one season in his career, by this methodology, was he one of the top 5 relievers in baseball.

The 1983 Season

Strictly by the methodology, Smith was the 2nd best reliever in his breakout 1983 campaign, barely ahead of Jesse Orosco (Dan Quisenberry was #1).

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Quisenberry (for the Kansas City Royals in the A.L.) pitched many more innings and saved 16 more games while Jesse Orosco (for the New York Mets) posted a lower ERA and won 13 games in relief.

The Cy Young voters seemed to feel that Smith was third best relief pitcher in ’83; Quisenberry was 2nd in the A.L. Cy Young vote. In the N.L., Orosco was 3rd in the Cy Young balloting; Smith was just 9th.

Because the Mets’ lefty had a 13-7 won-loss record (Smith’s was a poor 4-10), the Cy Young voters put Orosco 3rd and Smith 9th. I did not include wins and losses in these rankings because relief pitcher wins are often deceptive. This is why my rankings put Smith 2nd, Orosco 3rd.

In this particular case, however, the argument for Orosco is compelling. Only one of his 13 wins came after a blown save, the other 12 came when he entered the game with a tie score or with his team behind, held the opposition scoreless and got credit for the win when the Mets scored.

Those are real wins, not “vulture” wins. A “vulture” win is when a pitcher blows a save (costing another pitcher the win) and then gets credit for the win when his team scores in the next inning.

Anyway, whether you put him 2nd or 3rd, 1983 was a great year for Smith. He was 3rd in the majors in saves (first in the N.L.), 2nd in WAR, 2nd in ERA+, and 2nd in opponents’ OPS+.

Unfortunately, it was a year he would never duplicate, despite coming in the top 5 of three future Cy Young Award votes. By my rankings, Smith was the 9th best relief pitcher in 1986, 8th best in 1990, and 10th best in 1991. In every other season of his career, he was not even one of the 10 best relief pitchers in the game.

In total, using a blend of all eight of these statistical categories, only once in his entire career was Smith one of the seven best relievers. This is the essence of why I don’t feel that he had a Hall of Fame career. He was better than average in all but his final season, which is why he held the role of closer for so many years, but he was only truly great in one MLB campaign.

Lee Smith’s Rankings in Seasons when he got MVP or Cy Young Votes

Before finishing, let me address the inevitable pushback on my system, which ranks Lee Smith 10th in 1991 (when he was 2nd in the N.L. Cy Young vote) and not in the Top 10 in either 1992 (4th in the N.L. Cy Young vote) or 1994 (5th in the A.L. Cy Young vote).

First, let’s take a look at 1988, Smith’s first year in Boston. He saved 29 games with a 2.80 ERA and finished 21st in the A.L. MVP voting (which was 4th best among relievers in the league).

The 1988 Season:

This is how Smith ranked among the 87 pitchers who logged at least 55 innings (with 80% of their total appearances coming out of the bullpen) in 1988:

• 9th with 29 Saves
• 13th with a 2.6 Strikeout/Walk Ratio
• 18th with a 148 ERA+
• 18th with a 77 opposing OPS+
• 22nd with a .222 BAA
• 32nd with a 1.3 WAR
• 36th with a 0.58 WPA
• 46th with a 1.303 WHIP

1988 was certainly not a Top 10 season for Smith.

The 1991 Season

In 1991, Smith led the majors with 47 saves, a total that was also (at the time) the most ever for a National League pitcher, while posting a solid 2.34 ERA.

For this he finished 2nd in the Cy Young voting, behind 20-game winner Tom Glavine of the pennant-winning Atlanta Braves. And yet I’ve ranked him just the 10th best reliever that season.

This is how Smith ranked among all 105 relief pitchers who threw at least 55 innings (with at least 80% of their total appearances coming out of the bullpen) in 1991.

• 3rd with a 5.2 SO/BB ratio
• 4th with a 3.5 WPA
• 16th with a 158 ERA+
• 18th with a 2.3 WAR
• 25th with a 1.137 WHIP
• 33rd with a 82 opposing OPS+
• 58th with a .249 BAA

If I messed with the methodology, deleting a couple of pesky categories, I could make a case for Smith being 5th or 6th in 1991 (among relievers) but certainly not high enough to be second in the Cy Young vote (among all pitchers). The writers conferred that honor strictly because of the high save total.

The 1992 Season

In 1992, Lee Smith led the N.L. with 43 saves, posted a 3.12 ERA and finished 4th in the Cy Young voting (behind Greg Maddux, Glavine, and teammate Bob Tewksbury). Again, among 94 relief pitchers with a minimum of 55 innings pitched, Smith was…

• 58th with a 110 ERA+
• 58th with a 0.6 WAR

These were his worst two statistics but Smith not did rank higher than 25th among all MLB relief pitchers in any of the eight chosen statistical categories except for saves. And for this he was the 4th best pitcher in the National League? This was an epic fail by the baseball writers.

The 1994 Season

How about 1994, the strike-shortened season, in which Smith saved a ML-best 33 games for the Baltimore Orioles (with a 3.29 ERA)?

For that effort, the big righty was 5th in the Cy Young balloting, behind David Cone, Jimmy Key, Randy Johnson, and Mike Mussina. OK, to be fair, he got a total of one vote so no hate mail for the writers in total.

• 8th with a 3.8 SO/BB ratio (minimum 35 innings pitched)
• 20th with a 153 ERA+
• 20th with a 1.174 WHIP
• 43rd with a 0.8 WAR (0.8)

The 8th place rank in SO/BB and 20th place ranks with ERA+ and WHIP are the best of any categories other than saves.

Oh, and by the way, Smith pitched just 38.1 innings that year. It was just one vote but, if you just glance at his Baseball Reference page, CYA-5 is a Cooperstown credential (until you look into it further).

Statistical Ranks Year by Year

All told, going category by category, Lee Smith, in his 18-year career, finished in the top 10 for reliever ERA just two times (1983, when he was 3rd, and in 1990, when he finished 8th).

His third best season was in 1991, when he finished 11th in ERA. Two times in the top 10 is not good at all; the result is the same if you park-adjust it with ERA+.

For the record, below are the number of times Smith ranked in the top 10 of the seven other categories among all relief pitchers (minimum 70 innings through 1987, minimum of 55 innings thereafter when relievers in general started pitching less, minimum 35 IP in 1994).

Number of Smith’s Top 10 Seasons in Various Statistical Categories:

• Saves: 12 times (this, of course, is his chief Cooperstown credential).
• Strikeout/Walk ratio: 7 times (this is good).
• WPA: 5 times (this is not great for someone who had so many save opportunities).
• WAR: 3 times (this is not good).
• Opponents’ OPS+: Just 2 times (this is bad).
• Batting Average Against: 2 times (so is this).
• WHIP: just once (yikes).

There’s nothing subjective about those numbers. It’s what they are.

If you look beyond the saves column, was Smith a truly dominant, game-over, thanks-for-coming kind of closer? I’ve had a tough time convincing myself he was… In my time as a Hall of Fame voter, there has only been one player I ever voted for once and then changed my mind about. That player was none other than Lee Smith. I’ve changed a few ”nos” to ”yeses” throughout the years. But he’s the only “yes” who turned into a ”no”… My initial inclination, when Smith first appeared on the ballot, was to vote for the all-time saves leader. A year later, after thinking about it in greater depth, I decided there was more to a Hall of Fame closer than just the number in his saves column.”

— Jayson Stark (on espn.com)

Smith’s Second Chance at the Hall of Fame

After all of this, of course, I strongly believe that Lee Smith will be elected into the Hall of Fame this December by the Today’s Game Committee and will be standing with Mariano Rivera on stage at the induction ceremony next summer.

Throughout his career, Lee Smith played the role of the tortoise while many others (who piled up 300 saves fast but fell far short of Smith’s 478) played the role of the hare.

If, in your mind, the Hall of Fame “race” ends at 450 saves then Smith as the tortoise made it while so many of the hares burned out and fell short. Smith was a very good closer for a long time.

So I’ll close with a statistical argument in favor of Smith’s induction into Cooperstown. Although he was rarely one of the top 10 relief pitchers in any given season, he was a dependable closer option for 14 consecutive seasons. Remember, it was Joe Torre who paid Smith the ultimate compliment by saying that he was the only reliever he didn’t have to “worry about” other than Rivera.

From 1982-1995, among the 42 relief pitchers with at least 700 innings thrown (and 80 % of their appearances in relief), Smith was…

• 1st in Saves (of course)
• 3rd in Save%
• 1st in WAR
• 1st in WPA
• 4th in ERA
• 5th in ERA+
• 3rd in SO/9 IP
• 4th in SO/BB ratio
• 4th in OPS+ against
• 9th in WHIP

Now, in fairness, it’s easy to gerrymander any leaderboard by specifying the best years of a pitcher’s career (see the comments below) but, if/when Smith is inducted, we can look at these numbers and remember, “this guy was pretty darned good for a really long time.”

“I came from a small town known as Jamestown, Louisiana, and they still don’t even have a traffic light. There were 26 people in my graduating class. Never did I imagine playing in 400 games, let alone dreaming of saving over 400 games. My greatest dream for the Hall of Fame to recognize my career.”

— Lee Smith, from his SABR Bio

Despite all of the analysis above, I’m rooting for Lee Smith to make the Hall of Fame. I may not think he’s quite there but his case is legitimate. Just as he was super slow when walking in from the mound, Smith’s BBWAA supporters kept him on the ballot year after year after year. If he makes it to Cooperstown, it will be one of those slow but eventually successful journeys.

He would hardly be the first Hall of Famer who was rarely great but really good for a long period of time.

So, if Smith gets elected in December, I will cheer and celebrate what he did accomplish in his career. Baseball is about winning games and he was a reliable 9th inning option for multiple teams over 14 seasons.

If at least 12 of the 16 members of the Today’s Game Committee sees fit to confer a plaque in Cooperstown to Lee Smith, they’re telling us that he’s a Hall of Famer to them. They will be telling us that the total body of work of his career means more than the numbers on a year-to-year basis.

Thanks for reading. Please follow Cooperstown Cred on Twitter @cooperstowncred.

Chris Bodig