The Case for Lee Smith For the HOF

As much as I love to talk, write and blabber about baseball, there are some great injustices in the game.  Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame.  A line drive to the Center Fielder is more of a hit than a chopper over the pitcher’s head.  Small market teams have to work harder than big market teams and the NL Central had 6 teams while all the other divisions had 5 or 4.  Another injustice?  The guy who retired as the all time saves leader: not in the Hall of Fame.  Lee Smith deserves a spot if only because he’s one of the best relievers in the history of the game.  Here’s why:

Smith was picked 84th overall in our All Time Draft and that speaks volumes.

When we were compiling the 7 best teams that we ever could from the whole history of baseball, we gave Lee Smith a spot.  He is the closer on one of the teams.  He was picked ahead of Tony Gwynn, Mike Piazza, and Jackie Robinson. 300 game winner Tom Glavine wasn’t even drafted.  Don Drysdale either.  Or Dazzy Vance.  I went back and found the podcast from draft day and the only comment in the War Room that day after the pick was “Wtih the Jerry Curl or Without.”

For more of a concrete example as to why Lee Smith deserves in the Hall, let’s look at his leading the league in Saves on four separate occasions or his 7 all star games, or his second, fourth and fifth place finishes in the Cy Young voting.  Sure, he’s not a sure fire Hall of Famer, but name a reliever that is besides Rivera? Hoffman probably has the best HOF case and he lead the league in saves just twice while attending exactly 7 All Star games, exactly the same as Smith. Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers? 7 All Stars. Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter? 6 All Stars.

Lee Smith’s career 3.03 ERA is quite comparable with Sutter’s 2.83 and Fingers’s 2.90. If it took Fingers only two years on the Ballot to pass that magical 75% threshold then why is Lee Smith, in his tenth year, just barely scraping 45%.  The man was a great pitcher and this year I hope the BBWAA lets him, Barry Larkin and Tim Raines into Cooperstown with Jeff Bagwell climbing the old percentage chart up to 57%.

For a complete case of why all this doesn’t matter click here for a great article from theclassical.org.  TheClassical is a great blog and really has a great team of writers.

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