My First Cards

In 1982, Lee Smith had his breakout season.

Lee led the ’82 Cubbies, a 73 win team, with 17 saves. In fact, he’d only blown 1 save all year and none after mid-April. That was a result of his fine 2.69 ERA, which was the best among Cubs pitchers that had thrown at least 100 innings. He was also 2nd on the team in strikeouts, 2nd only to future Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins! Lee was still just 24.

This was a far cry from his ’81 season, when he only earned 1 save and blew 3 other opportunities, en route to a 3.51 ERA.

By the end of his career, he’d lead the league in saves 5 times on his way to amassing 478 saves. No other pitcher would match that career total until 9 years after Lee Smith retired. Two closers have passed him since then, and they’re both probably future Hall of Famers.

Which brings up a question. Should Lee Smith be in Cooperstown? After all, he had a stellar career and led the world in saves for almost a decade after he retired.

To answer this, we need to compare Lee to his peers. By “peers”, I mean pitchers who weren’t starters but pitched in a similar role. This way we can look beyond his beautiful 131 ERA+ which takes into account closers, middle relievers, junk time pitchers, and starters.

We can do this by looking at the ERA of every pitcher with at least 200 saves through 2009 & how they’ve done in save situations. After all, how else can we really put a value on Lee Smith’s 478 saves? Yes, I know you’re a smart manager who doesn’t care about 478 saves but cares about not giving up runs.

So, ERA in Save Situations for pitchers with a minimum 200 career saves through 2009…

1. 1.87 Mariano Rivera
2. 1.99 Joe Nathan
3. 2.16 Hoyt Wilhelm (mostly pre-1969)
4. 2.39 Sparky Lyle
5. 2.40 Tom Henke
6. 2.41 Goose Gossage
7. 2.48 Billy Wagner
8. 2.49 Dan Quisenberry
9. 2.56 Trevor Hoffman
10. 2.61 Dave Smith
11. 2.61 Frankie Rodriguez
12. 2.69 Rollie Fingers
13. 2.72 Randy Myers
14. 2.75 Bobby Thigpen
15. 2.80 John Franco
16. 2.83 Dennis Eckersley
17. 2.85 Bruce Sutter
18. 2.87 Rob Nen
19. 2.89 Armando Benitez!!!
20. 2.90 Dave Righetti
21. 2.94 Lee Smith
22. 2.94 Doug Jones
23. 3.02 Gregg Olson
24. 3.08 John Wetteland
25. 3.13 Jeff Shaw
26. 3.14 Ugueth Urbina
27. 3.16 Jeff Montgomery
28. 3.17 Bob Wickman
29. 3.19 Todd Worrell
30. 3.22 Troy Percival
31. 3.22 Francisco Cordero
32. 3.26 Jose Mesa
33. 3.36 Gene Garber
34. 3.37 Jeff Reardon
35. 3.37 Rick Aguilera
36. 3.37 Rod Beck
37. 3.38 Jason Isringhausen
38. 3.49 Roberto Hernandez
39. 3.78 Todd Jones

Suddenly Lee Smith looks pretty average among his peers, and Hall of Famers are not average or near average at their position. I don’t care how you spin it.

This also exposes the fact that Lee Smith was basically Doug Jones with more save opportunities. Do you think Doug Jones was a Hall of Fame closer? Mmmmm… don’t kid yourself.

This isn’t to say Lee wasn’t good. You don’t end up pitching 18 seasons if you’re not very good. He just wasn’t Hall of Fame good.