Comments on: Lee Smith

By: Devon

Devon — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:03:45 +0000

night owl, I used to think Lee Smith should be in the Hall, but then I did some research like this to compare him to other closers. After all, I figured he has to be clearly better than his peers in order to be a Hall of Famer. I don’t recall really thinking of him as a big stopper during his career. I just thought of him as one of the better closer but like a 2nd class closer.

Subrata Sircar, I do see the elite closers as his peers, but there’s just too many non-HOF elite closers that did better in save situations to justify him going to Cooperstown. By the way, Doug Jones pitched for 16 years, almost the same length of career as Lee Smith. It’s just that Lee’s managers gave him more save opp’s than Doug Jones managers did, or maybe his teams had more save opp’s to pitch in.

leco, I’ll give that a look into, and probably find a way to tie it into a Gossage or Davis card in a few months. Thanks!

By: leco

leco — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:57:25 +0000

nice job. He’s a lock for the Hall of Very Good. Relievers/firemen/closers are still an evolving position and as such I’m not sure the Baseball Writers are really sure how to deal with them. I ask of you, time permitting and interest willing, to engage in some revisionist history and tell me what u think about Roy Face and R.Perinowski and the work they did. I’ve always enjoyed delving into figuring out this whole releiver thing, for instance, the Yanks I credit with inventing the 8th inning role initially by audaciously signing Goose with a CY YOUNG winner (Lyle) already in the fold. While Lyle being relegated to the 8th inning role was just merely a consequence of the signing of Goose, Ron Davis was completely by design. Ron Davis was the first designated 8th inning pitcher. That was 30 years ago and before LaRussa. Thanks for your time. u can get me at TripleToRight [at] Yahoo.com Happy Holidays

By: Subrata Sircar

Subrata Sircar — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:35:45 +0000

Of course, 200 career saves isn’t his “peers”; it’s the elite. This shows Lee Smitha as “average” ERA among the elite, with about three times their opportunities because he pitched at an elite level for so long.

This might do more to make his case than deny it – being very good for a very long time is a reasonable path to the Hall.

By: night owl

night owl — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:08:17 +0000

Interesting.

I’ve leaned toward the side of putting Smith in the Hall, but this makes me stop a bit. I do remember that Smith had a few “average” type seasons.