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Is Lee Smith a HOF'er?

By Dave Fleming

December 28, 2009

Let’s look at the five relief pitchers already inducted into the Hall of Fame, plus two fellows who are sure bets to get elected when they finally hang ‘em up:

	IP	W-L	Saves	K	ERA	ERA+
Hoyt Wilhelm	2254	143-122	227	1610	2.52	146
Rich Gossage	1809	124-107	310	1502	3.01	126
Rollie Fingers	1701	114-118	341	1299	2.90	119
Bruce Sutter	1042	68-71	300	861	2.83	136
Dennis Eckersley	991	52-54	387	911	3.29	122
Mariano Rivera	1090	71-52	526	1006	2.25	202
Trevor Hoffman	1042	59-68	591	1103	2.73	147

Two things: first, I’ve listed the players based on the year when they first became relief pitchers. Second, I’ve only posted Dennis Eckersley’s stats as a relief pitcher.

Why? To give a sense of how usage patterns among relief pitchers have changed over the years. It’s very clear: Wilhelm threw a ton of innings, Goose and Rollie threw a lot of innings, but less than Wilhelm. Sutter and Eck and Rivera and Hoffman have pitched fewer innings as relief pitchers than the others. If Eckersley is listed with his 3000 innings pitched, it makes the table more confusing.

Let’s get Lee Arthur Smith on the list.

	IP	W-L	Saves	Strikeouts	ERA	ERA+
Hoyt Wilhelm	2254	143-122	227	1610	2.52	146
Rollie Fingers	1701	114-118	341	1299	2.90	119
Rich Gossage	1809	124-107	310	1502	3.01	126
Bruce Sutter	1042	68-71	300	861	2.83	136
Lee Smith	1289	71-92	478	1251	3.03	131
Dennis Eckersley	991	52-54	387	911	3.29	122
Mariano Rivera	1090	71-52	526	1006	2.25	202
Trevor Hoffman	1042	59-68	591	1103	2.73	147

Lee Smith is a bridge from those closer who threw 1-3 innings and had a few more wins and loses every year (Sutter, Gossage) to the one-inning ‘closers’ we have today.

In discussions about the Hall of Fame, we talk a lot about benchmarks, about standards. What is the standard number of home runs a slugging outfielder should hit to get elected? What is the expected offensive production from a shortstop? How about a catcher?

The standards for relief pitchers getting into the Hall of Fame are less clear than the standards for other positions, because a) those standards are drawn from a very small group of players and b) the changing nature of the position makes it difficult to determine exactly what the standards are.

Still: measured by the career standards of Hall-of-Fame relievers, Lee Smith does just fine.

-Smith ranks 4^th (out of eight) in innings pitched. He is behind Wilhelm, Fingers, and Goose, but he’s well ahead of Rivera, Hoffman, Sutter and Eck’s innings as a closer. It will take Rivera about three more seasons as a closer to pass Smith in innings pitched. It will take Hoffman close to four more seasons.

-Smith still ranks third all-time in saves, and was the #1 guy for a long time until Hoffman and then Rivera passed him. Hoffman and Rivera are both certain Hall-of-Famers: the only men who have passed Smith in saves are locks for enshrinement.

-Smith has the second-best strikeout rate of the eight players listed, behind only Trevor Hoffman. Smith also ranks fourth among the closers in career strikeouts as a reliever.

-His ERA, adjusted for contexts, is very good. He’s below Rivera, Hoffman, Wilhelm, and Sutter, but he’s ahead of Fingers, Gossage, and Eckersley. Smith spent a lot of hitter’s parks (Wrigley, Fenway).

-Smith’s W-L record is the worst of any of the relief pitchers on the table above. It would be easy to dismiss that as inconsequential, but it does matter. Sutter, Eck, and Hoffman have losing records, but Smith’s W-L record is the worst on the list.

(Just an aside: I thought it might be a Wrigley effect: I figured that in home run-friendly parks a closer would be more apt to lose a game. But Smith’s W-L record in Wrigley was 27-26, which blows my hypothesis right out of the water.)

By the career standard of the seven closer who are or will be elected into the Hall-of-Fame, Lee Smith is an obvious Hall-of-Famer.

Going A Little Further

The good folks over at baseballreference have a terrific addition to their statistical measures: a detailed look at the situations when a pitcher entered a game. Let’s look at where Smith ranks among the others in converting save situations:

	Saves	Blown Saves	SV%
Mariano Rivera	526	62	89%
Trevor Hoffman	591	71	89%
Dennis Eckersley	390	71	85%
Lee Smith	478	103	82%
Hoyt Wilhelm	201	63	78%
Rollie Fingers	341	109	76%
Bruce Sutter	300	101	75%
Goose Gossage	310	112	73%

Lee Smith converted 82% of his save opportunities, which ranks him in the middle of the pack. He’s behind Rivera, Hoffman, and Eckersley, but is ahead of Wilhelm, Fingers, and Gossage.

What about inherited runners? Did Lee Smith do a good job of keeping inherited runners from scoring?

	Inherited Runners	Inherited Rns Scored	IS%
Trevor Hoffman	341	70	21%
Dennis Eckersley	349	91	26%
Lee Smith	510	143	28%
Mariano Rivera	318	93	29%
Rollie Fingers	783	225	29%
Bruce Sutter	445	137	31%
Goose Gossage	832	277	33%
Hoyt Wilhelm	553	186	34%

He did: only Hoffman and Eckersley have been tougher on inherited runners than Lee Smith, who allowed just 28% of inherited runners to score.

Baseballreference lists the degree of difficulty when a relief pitcher is used. This is based on a metric invented by Tom Tango, who has a terrific site over at tangotiger.net. High leverage situations are described as situations when the leverage index of the first batter the reliever faces is higher than 1.5. Medium leverage is between 0.7 and 1.4. Low leverage is when the first batter has a leverage index lower than 0.7. For what it’s worth, a leverage index of 1.00 is considered a neutral situation.

Starting the ninth inning with a one-run lead has a higher leverage than starting with a three-run lead.

	Relief Apps	Lev Hi	Lev Md	Lev Lo
Bruce Sutter	659	472	106	81
Trevor Hoffman	975	636	204	135
Lee Smith	1008	638	170	200
Rollie Fingers	901	558	173	170
Goose Gossage	951	569	164	218
Mariano Rivera	902	532	204	166
Dennis Eckersley	701	394	165	142
Hoyt Wilhelm	832	403	188	241

Let’s covert these totals to percentages:

	Hi%	Md %	Low%
Bruce Sutter	72%	16%	12%
Trevor Hoffman	65%	21%	14%
Lee Smith	63%	17%	20%
Rollie Fingers	62%	19%	19%
Goose Gossage	60%	17%	23%
Mariano Rivera	59%	23%	18%
Dennis Eckersley	56%	24%	20%
Hoyt Wilhelm	48%	23%	29%

Sixty-three percent of Smith’s relief appearances came in high leverage situations, which is the third-best total of the closer listed on our tables.

In regards to Average Leverage Index, or the average degree of difficulty that a relief pitcher is used for, Lee Smith again does extremely well:

	aLI
Bruce Sutter	2.042
Trevor Hoffman	2.010
Lee Smith	1.925
Mariano Rivera	1.837
Rollie Fingers	1.677
Goose Gossage	1.632
Dennis Eckersley	1.433
Hoyt Wilhelm	1.430

Only Sutter and Hoffman were regularly used in more difficult situations than Lee Smith, who is ahead of the great Rivera.

Lastly, let’s look at career Win-Probability Added, or WPA. As you might remember from my article about the MVP of the Yankee dynasty, WPA is very kind to relief pitchers: during their years with the Yankees, Rivera has notched a much higher WPA than teammates Jeter and Posada. WPA is another Tom Tango statistic, and it is one of the best measures for evaluating a closer’s value to a team, as it measures the team’s chances of winning when the pitcher enters the game against the eventual outcome.

	WPA	IP	WPA/100 IP
Mariano Rivera	48.85	1090	4.48
Trevor Hoffman	35.49	1042	3.41
Bruce Sutter	19.61	1042	1.88
Lee Smith	23.97	1289	1.86
Goose Gossage	31.40	1809	1.74
Dennis Eckersley	14.75	991	1.49
Rollie Fingers	10.67	1701	0.63
Hoyt Wilhelm	unknown	2254	unknown

I’ve listed Smith’s Win Probability Added against the other relief pitchers, as well as his WPA per 100 innings pitched (mostly because it looks a whole lot neater than WPA per inning pitched, or per nine innings pitched).

As you can see, Smith ranks far below Hoffman and Rivera, but is about even with Sutter and Gossage, and well ahead of (reliever) Eckersley and Rollie Fingers.

-Of the eight closers listed, Smith ranks 4^th in converting save opportunities.

-In allowing inherited runners to score, Smith ranks 3^rd.

-In terms of leverage, only two pitchers have appeared in a greater percentage of high leverage situations than Smith has.

-In terms of Win Probability Added, Smith ranks fourth, neck-and-neck with Bruce Sutter and Goose Gossage.

By advanced metrics, Smith still does well against the pack of Hall-of-Fame relief pitchers.

The Sabermetric/BBWAADivide

Lee Smith will almost certainly be elected to the baseball Hall of Fame by the BBWAA. He has notched between 35-45% of the vote each year, topping out at 44.5% during last year’s vote. With no relief pitchers with a reasonable shot of getting elected coming onto the ballot until Rivera and Hoffman decide to retire, Smith faces no real competition for votes. He will get elected, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened this year.

Smith has not done well in the BJOL vote. Last year he received just 14% of the vote, and he isn’t doing a whole lot better this year.

Why is that? And: who is right: the BBWAA who routinely gives Smith 40-60% of their votes, or the readers of the BJOL, who are far less generous with their votes.

To answer the first question, I suspect that the readers of the BJOL are generally less kind to readers for a number of reasons:

1- Being a relief pitcher is, generally speaking, a step down: you are moved to the bullpen because you can’t be a starter. Bad starters will often have great success closing out games, but you seldom see a closer covert successfully to the starting rotation.

2- Relief pitchers are measured by a stat, ‘saves’ that most of us agree is ridiculous in measuring the efficiency of a pitcher.

3- The position has changed dramatically over the last forty years, and only now are we seeing anything close to a consistent pattern of usage.

4- That modern pattern of usage, as Bill has pointed out in numerous places, is far less efficient than previous usage patterns. Having your best bullpen arm pitching in the ninth with a three-run lead is far less useful than having him pitch in the sixth inning of a tie game.

5- The standards for what makes someone a quality relief pitcher are difficult to know, and the contextual elements are not as easily understood as they are for players at other positions.

6- The standards that the Hall of Fame has set seem capricious and strange. Bruce Sutter gets in before Goose Gossage? Eck is elected on his first ballot, Fingers is elected during his second year, but Hoyt Wilhelm needs eight years?

7- Every year it seems someone comes out of nowhere to save 40-50 games. It happened last year: Heath Bell, who had two career saves during his entire career, paced the NL with 42 saves. This dilutes the perception of difficulty: to save forty games as a relief pitcher is influenced as much by luck as by skill.

There are probably a dozen more reasons why we’re not giving Lee Smith our votes. As for the question of whether or not we should vote for Smith: I haven’t voted for Smith, but I’m convinced. I think there are good reasons to have high standards for relief pitchers being elected to the Hall of Fame. But it seems clear to me that Lee Smith meets those standards.

Dave Fleming is a writer living in Chicago. He welcomes comments, questions, and suggestions here and at dfleming1986@yahoo.com

COMMENTS (11 Comments, most recent shown first)

evanecurb
Dave: You are probably right about the 500 saves. Rivera's total basket of accomplishments, which include a 200 ERA+, the umpteen consecutive seasons of 30+ saves with few blown saves, and the postseason accomplishments, won't be matched. But they won't become the new minimum standard, either.

Another question: Will a middle reliever who is active today be elected to the Hall of Fame? Should one? If so, who? I am thinking about Scot Shields, who is putting together an impressive body of work, though he is far from a HOF level at this point.
12:07 AM Jan 7th

DaveFleming
Interesting question, Evan, whether Hoffman and Rivera have set an impossible benchmark for future closers.

To be honest, I doubt they have. If the bar is 500 saves, well, that's not THAT difficult to reach: a good season now is forty saves, so 500 saves is about thirteen seasons worth of saves. That's not an impossible goal.

And, I think that the usage pattern for closers is still changing: as Bill pointed out in the latest Historical Baseball Abstract, it is possible to have your bullpen ace save twenty games and WIN twenty games: there is a possibility that the records for future relief aces will look more like those of Eckersley and Smoltz, rather than Hoffman and Rivera.
3:53 PM Jan 5th

evanecurb
I'm on board, and I voted for him in the BJOL poll.

Will Hoffman and Rivera set an impossibly high standard for future closers to merit HOF consideration? (In other words, assuming Hoffman is elected, will anyone who falls short of his credentials necessarily fall short of election? I think that they may.)

I like your chart and the way in which it points out the differences in the way the relievers were used. Good article.

12:40 AM Jan 1st

rgregory1956
I think it all depends, not so much on statistics, on how many people a year you think should go into the HOF. If you believe the Hall should be very exclusive, adding only one a year, then Smith obviously doesn't go in. If you believe that two should go in each year (still a pretty exclusive criteria), he still is unlikely to be honored. If you believe 3 should go in each year (which is approximately the current HOF standard if you include Veteran Committee selections), then he's right there at the cusp: maybe yes, maybe no. If you like a more inclusive HOF, adding 4 or more a year, then yes, he's deserving. I kinda think of Smith as the relievers version of Darrell Evans or Dwight Evans. Really, really good, but something's missing. I too wouldn't hold my nose if he were selected by either the BBWAA or some Veterans Committee; but I don't know if I'd vote for him. But he's close - very, very close.
10:08 AM Dec 30th

RangeFactor
To clarify my earlier comment, I believe a great case has been made that Lee Smith has accomplished enough in the regular season to earn a spot in Cooperstown. The people who actually select inductees to the HOF (sportswriters and Veterans Committee members) seem to place significant weight on postseason performance. For this reason, the Hall of Fame Monitor awards points to relief pitchers (and all other players) for postseason appearances and accomplishments. Lee Smith scores 135 on the HoFM (130 is considered a sure thing IIRC) but none of these points were earned in the postseason. Rollie Fingers scores 140 on the HoFM, but if you took away his postseasons he'd have fewer than Smith and would be in the same gray area of HoF candidacies instead of a 2nd-year inductee. As others have noted, the HoFM is a tool to predict who will get voted in, not who deserves to be.
4:28 PM Dec 29th

DaveFleming
For Richie:

1) On Eck: I just thought leaving him out of the discussion would raise more hackles than throwing in his relief stats: he had close to 1000 innings pitched as a relief pitcher; Smith had close to 1300...I figured he was worth mentioning.

2) I think Hoffman is a lock for the Hall, yes. If he and Mariano retire at the same time, he might have to wait a year, but I have little doubt he will be elected, and probably during his first three years on the ballot.

3) Peak value...I meant to mention that, and got sidetracked. Peak value is tougher to measure for closers, because all sorts of unknown closers can have a great year or two. I remember people thinking U. Urbina was going to be some kind of closer for a few years...obviously that didn't happen. The peak of Fingers or Gossage is indistinguishable from the peak of Quiz or Henke: what is different is career length.

This is an oversimplification, but it seems to me that closers elected to the Hall are the guys who have long careers, with Bruce Sutter as the obvious exception.

4) Let's see: his first year as a closer, (1983) Smith finished 56 games, threw 103 innings. Second year was 59 games finished, 101 IP. In Mo Rivera's first year as a closer, he also finished 56 games, but threw just 72 innings. Second year he finished 49 games, threw 61 innings. I'd say there's a difference in usage patterns.

5. No problem, and thanks for the comments. I'll get to Edgar next.

3:25 PM Dec 29th

mkrob
Great article, Dave. I think Smith's career being split between the "one inning guys" and the previous closer usage patterns causes some confusion. He's done very well in two brief relief pitcher comparisons that Bill James published. He had a string of something like 17 straight seasons better than the league average ERA. It's extremely rare for a closer to last anything near that long and to be effective every year is rarer still. He was a very consistent pitcher in a role that breeds inconsistency. Someone mentioned Smith's postseason career, which amounted to only 4 games in 2 seasons (1984, 1988) of an eighteen year big league career and no, he wasn't effective. To paraphrase a Bill James quote about someone else, "4 games? that's not how you logically judge a man who pitched 18 seasons in the major leagues."
12:06 PM Dec 29th

Richie
Rollie is in because of his moustache. Seriously. OK, semi-seriously.
12:03 PM Dec 29th

ventboys
Smith is in the gray area, to me. His career stats might be close to the Hall guys, but they are also close to guys like Roberto Hernandez and John Franco. Hernandez, who laid several eggs to go with some good years, had the same ERA+ as Smith. Franco was a few points higher. Also, where are the big seasons?

He did have one huge one, 1991 when he finished 2nd in the Cy Young voting, and he was up there in a couple of other years. His era was under 2.5 just 3 times in a 14 year career as a closer, under 2 just once. In his biggest year he pitched just 73 innings (though he did go over 100 a couple of times early on, when closers did that).

I certainly would not hold my nose if he is selected. I won't be leading the bandwagon. I was there for his entire career. I don't remember him being thought of as the best in the game for more than a season here and there. I am not completely sold on Trevor Hoffman yet. (looks harder at Hoffman)...

Ok, now I am sold on Trevor Hoffman. The gap between them is large, though. 16 points of era+ and a massive difference in whip. Hoffman's whip (1.04) might be his best argument. Smith's is a pedestrian 1.25, and for a closer that doesn't scream Hall of Fame to me.

Good stuff, Dave. When do we do Edgar, lol?
1:11 AM Dec 29th

RangeFactor
Success in the postseason is a key factor in making the Hall of Fame for a closer, all else being equal. Rich Gossage closed games for the Yankees during their '78-'81 postseason runs, Eckersley for the Oakland A's in the late '80s. Offhand I can't think of Lee Smith nailing the 27th out in a closeout game during a big postseason series; in fact he wasn't good in the postseason.

IMO if Jeff Reardon was the closer for the Oakland A's dynasty from '71-'75, and Rollie Fingers was the closer for mostly bad Mets and Expos teams, they would be on the opposite sides of the Cooperstown divide than they are today.
8:22 PM Dec 28th

Richie
What I think:

1) Eck's prime years were spent as a starter. This adversely affects his reliever rate stats; ERA, K-per-IP. I just don't see Eck as pertinent to the issue of Lee Smith. Not unless you do arbitrarily assign him some value for his 'starter' years. Think I'd just as soon leave him out.

2) Hoffman is considered a lock for the HoF? Probable, perhaps. But a lock?

3) Nothing in here about 'peak' value. What are your reasons for ignoring it?

4) My understanding was that Smith was less a bridge between yesterday and today, but rather the first segment in 'today'. Do his innings-per-appearance differ at all from Hoffman and Rivera? If not, then they might be his only proper comparables. In which case his HoF case then drops down to 'well, he was better than (poor choice) Sutter'.

5) Thanks very much for the article, Dave.
6:49 PM Dec 28th

Is Lee Smith a HOF'er?

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