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Originally Posted by joefromchicago
Smith's ERA+ number is probably his least impressive stat, as relievers should have a significantly lower ERA than the league average. As for his HR/9 stat, that's about average for that time period. Obviously, for a pitcher who is coming into the game in the late innings in a save situation, you'd want him to give up a lot fewer HRs than the average guy.
As I said, Smith was above-average for a long time. But he was rarely the best reliever in baseball at any one time. In the early '80s, Quisenberry and Sutter were much better. In the late '80s Eckersley was putting up better numbers, as was Rod Beck in the early '90s. Smith was consistently good, but he was seldom superior. If consistently good is the criterion for getting into the Hall, then Jamie Moyer gets in next.
Not sure why, given that the voters for those awards don't look past that. They're the ones who, at least theoretically, are scrutinizing a player's performance in real time. That gives us a sense of what people thought of a player's value while the player was still playing. That, I think, should count for something.
I could be wrong, but I think the Rolaids award winner was determined by a mathematical formula, not by a vote. It was something like (saves x 2) + (relief wins x 1) - (relief losses x 1) (that was before the invention of the "blown save" stat). So the fact that Smith led the league in saves four times but only won the award three times means that his relief losses knocked him out of first place in at least one year (and that year was 1983).
I agree. I've been to Cooperstown twice and thoroughly enjoyed myself both times. My enjoyment and appreciation of the place isn't diminished by the inclusion of Lee Smith, just as it isn't diminished by the inclusion of Candy Cummings or Dennis Eckersley or all of Frankie Frisch's buddies. At the end of the day, it's just a game.
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MLB (1980-1997): WHIP: 1.364, H/9: 8.95, HR/9: 0.86, BB/9: 3.32, K/9: 5.70, K/BB: 1.72, ERA: 4.01, ERA+: 100
Lee Smith (1980-1997): WHIP: 1.256, H/9: 7.91, HR/9: 0.62, BB/9: 3.39, K/9: 8.73, K/BB: 2.57, ERA: 3.03, ERA+: 132
WHIP: 8.6% better than average, H/9: 13.1% better than average, HR/9: 38.7% better than average, BB/9: 2.1% worse than average, K/9: 53.2% better than average, K/BB: 49.4% better than average, ERA: 32.3% better than average, ERA+: 32% better than average
He was absolutely significantly above average at keeping the ball in the yard, striking out hitters, managing his strikeout to walk ratio, and preventing runs for his time. He was reasonably above average at preventing hits (not all his doing, needs his defense to help out here, and BB-Ref says he pitched with slightly below average defenses behind him over the course of his career), league average to slightly above average in WHIP, and basically league average at not allowing walks.
I think in the overall that makes him a significantly above average pitcher over 18 seasons and 1289.1 IP. So he has the longevity down. He also had a great peak from 1982 through 1991, and I think it's quite arguable that if you look at those ten years in the aggregate, he was the best reliever in the game during that time. There may have been individual seasons during that time when he wasn't the best, but during that ten season run, he was the best in baseball. Ten years is quite significant.
Over that ten season period, he was first among relievers according to Baseball-Reference in WAR, WAA (Wins Above Average), WPA (Win Probability Added), REW (Win Expectancy), and FIP ([Fielding Independent Pitching] amongst relievers with 600 or more IP - reasonable to demand at least 60 IP per season as a cutoff point). Not everybody agrees that the so called "advanced metrics" should have any bearing on anything, but if he's number one in all five of these stats, it's reasonable to say that he was the best over this decade. These advanced metrics also correlate much better to the ranking of players and to how much a player helped his team to win, than traditional counting stats do. In other words, just because Joe Carter is 59th on the all-time HR list, it does not indicate that he is the 59th best hitter of all-time.
For the record, during that ten year peak, the numbers we looked at above were 1.229 WHIP, 7.76 H/9, 0.57 HR/9, 3.30 BB/9, 9.20 K/9, 2.79 K/BB, 2.79 ERA, 142 ERA+. This is an excellent peak for the era it was accomplished in. Then you've got his longevity on top of that.
I don't like saves as a stat either, but he was tied for number one with Jeff Reardon at 311 during this decade. I don't include Eckersley in the relievers because during this time (and during his career) he threw roughly three times as many innings as a starter. I think that's a reasonable thing to do.
Regarding ERA+, Smith put up a 132 career ERA+, Gossage put up a 126 career ERA+, and Fingers put up a career 120 ERA+. Not arguing that he's a ceiling HoFer (if we're looking at floor to ceiling HoFers) because that would be idiotic. But I do think an argument can be made for him to be a floor HoFer. Not arguing that he was better than Gossage either because that would be stupid. I would say the ceiling HoFers are Rivera...space...Wilhelm...space...Gossage...space ...the rest of the floor HoFers like Smith, Hoffman, Sutter, and Fingers.
Nice joke with the Jamie Moyer reference. I needed a chuckle. So you're saying an SP who's arguably in the top 120 of all-time amongst his peers is the equivalent of a top ten reliever of all-time? Got it. Also, when you add up Eckersley's SP innings and his RP innings, it's my opinion that he's well over any reasonable line for induction, so I have no problem with him being in there. Cheers. We disagree, but these debates are fun. For the record, I didn't always believe that Smith belonged, but I've definitely come around on him in the last little while.