Devon Young makes a case for Lee Smith not belonging in the Hall of Fame. I’m not surprised by the stat, however, I will point out Lee spent many years pitching in good hitters parks.
Devon Young makes a case for Lee Smith not belonging in the Hall of Fame. I’m not surprised by the stat, however, I will point out Lee spent many years pitching in good hitters parks.
I would still think 400+ saves would be worthy of a Hall of Fame spot. Its like hitting 30000 hits or 500 HRs. As long as the guy isn’t terrible, you reward the consistency.
Sorry, 3000 hits… Can’t edit on my blackberry apparently.
I lean towards the consistency argument, too. I thought comparing Smith with other closers who amassed over 200 saves was interesting, but it’s not really far to compare somebody with a couple hundred saves to someone else with nearly 500 saves. There are alot of bullpen pitchers who will be stars for a few years but then fizzle out. Smith, on the other hand, didn’t have a season with less than 25 saves for 12 straight years. Additionally, when you look at his innings pitched you see the figure go steadily down as his career progresses, showing how the closer’s role changed throughout the 80s and into the 90s. Whem Smith started pitching in the early 80s, he was out there for more innings, thus exposing his ERA to more possibilities for runs scored. But closers were expected to pitch for more than one inning, which we can’t say today, so it’s a bit unfair to compare Smith with closers from the 90s who were expected to pitch less often. In my opinion, at least. I could be full of it, who knows. 🙂