The Pirates were pillaging the Cubs 8-0 with one out in the top of the 5th, when Joe drew a walk. He went to second when Ivan DeJesus followed Joe’s walk with another walk. Next batter, Steve Dillard, smacked a two-run double into left. When Joe crossed the plate, he finished his major league career.

Not a bad way to go out.

Of course, nobody knew it at the time and most people probably never noticed he was even in the show. He’d spent most of his 169 game career, as a backup infielder and pinch hitter. Only the most diehard fans remember this kind of player.

Yet here we are though, thirty years later, looking at a souvenir of a time when he was at his peak as a baseball player. Only 17,602 kids ever made it as far as the major leagues, and Joe turned out to be one of them. He must’ve been pretty good when you think about it like that.

He continued to play in AAA during ’82 & ’83, before retiring in ’84. At that point, Joe went to the Giants organization to be a minor league manager for several years. He started his playing career for San Francisco too, so there’s a nice symmetry there.

I wonder if he’d have stuck around in the majors longer if he hadn’t been traded or if he’d been traded to somewhere other than Chicago’s northside. Wrigley Field was actually one of the worst parks for him, where he hit just .160/.222/.180. He probably would’ve thrived in San Diego, Montreal, or Philadelphia. He hit well in those parks, with Montreal being the worst of them, where he managed to hit .318/.375/.455.

So during the ’81 winter meetings, the Cubbies were lookin’ to unload the 29 year old pitcher for some younger players after they signed Fergie Jenkins. The Phillies bit the bait, and gave the Cubs 3 younger players for the below average Mike Krukow.

That seemed like a stupid deal for the perennial playoff contending Phillies, causing a stir in the media with headlines like “Phillies Being ‘Had’?“.

The Phillies thought very differently of Krukow. Philadelphia GM Paul Owens said he felt Krukow would win 15-18 games for the Phils! Seems like a stretch for someone who’d never won more than 10 games before.

The Phillies weren’t “had” though, as they won 18 of the games Mike started. This was largely because his HR’s per 9 IP were cut in half, which helped his ERA drop a lot—

I’m sure that the Phillies defense helped him a lot too, and Philadelphia could give him better run support than the Cubs did. Still, it’s fascinating to see him improve like that, and know the Phillies could see it coming. This wasn’t entirely overnight though, as Mike’s ERA was sliding down in ’81, indicating to them he was improving.

Mike even improved on his WAR too. He earned 1.2 WAR in ’80, and 2.3 WAR in ’81, which matched his career high at the time. Once in Philly though, he jumped it up to 3.3 WAR. He’d match it again later in his career, but he’d never have a higher WAR than in 1982.

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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.

1981 had been the best season for Jerry since he was with the Cubs a few years earlier. 1982, was even better, even though his playing time was limited. He was on the downside of his career by this time, but he made the most of his opportunities. He came to the plate 45 times that year with RISP (runners in scoring position), he turned in a beautiful .450 BA & .489 OBP, which was way above his career numbers for that.

I find it interesting he did his best hitting during day games, posting a .278/.330/.413 batting line. That explains why his best years were for the Cubbies, who still didn’t have lights at Wrigley until 5 years after Morales retired. Another thing that made him a good Cub, was his penchant for slamming the rival Cardinals. He hit .327/.382/.461, smacking 114 hits in 115 games.

No wonder Bleed Cubbie Blue ranks Jerry as the 92nd best Cub ever.