Lee Smith

Baseball Player Won-Loss Records
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Lee Smith

Hall-of-Famers as Seen Through Player Won-Lost Records: Lee Smith

Lee Smith was elected to the Hall of Fame by the Today's Game Era Committee in 2019.

Five highlights of Lee Smith's career:

Lee Smith was named to the All-Star team seven times. He received Cy Young votes four times, finishing as high as second in 1991 (6-3, 47 saves, 2.34 ERA, 67 K, only 13 BB, in 73 IP). He received MVP votes four times.

Smith won three Rolaids Relief Man awards in his career: in 1991, 1992, and 1994.

Lee Smith set the major-league record for career saves with his 358th career save on April 13, 1993. He retired in 1997 with 478 career saves and held the career record until Trevor Hoffman passed him on September 24, 2006.

Lee Smith still holds the Chicago Cubs franchise record for saves with 180. He also had the most saves in the history of the St. Louis Cardinals when he retired (160).

Lee Smith hit the only home run of his career on July 5, 1982. This game was also the last of Lee Smith's six career games started.

The first two tables below present Lee Smith's career as measured by Player won-lost records, in and out of context.

Season	Team	Age	Games	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

Basic Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1980	CHN	22	18	0.6	0.7	-0.0	-0.1
1981	CHN	23	40	3.1	4.3	-0.6	-1.2
1982	CHN	24	72	6.2	5.6	1.5	0.6
1983	CHN	25	66	8.6	5.2	4.4	3.2
1984	CHN	26	69	9.4	5.5	4.9	3.6
1985	CHN	27	65	10.1	6.1	5.2	3.7
1986	CHN	28	66	8.7	6.9	2.9	1.5
1987	CHN	29	62	7.4	5.7	2.6	1.4
1988	BOS	30	64	7.7	5.4	3.2	2.0
1989	BOS	31	64	5.1	3.7	2.0	1.2
+– 1990		32	64	8.8	4.2	5.5	4.3
	BOS		11	1.4	0.7	0.8	0.7
	SLN		53	7.4	3.5	4.6	3.6
1991	SLN	33	67	8.5	5.3	4.2	2.9
1992	SLN	34	70	7.1	4.7	3.3	2.2
+– 1993		35	62	5.9	4.6	2.1	1.2
	NYA		8	0.5	0.2	0.4	0.4
	SLN		54	5.4	4.5	1.7	0.8
1994	BAL	36	41	4.6	3.2	2.0	1.3
1995	CAL	37	52	5.4	3.8	2.3	1.5
+– 1996		38	54	2.4	2.5	0.3	-0.2
	CAL		11	0.3	0.3	0.1	0.0
	CIN		43	2.1	2.2	0.2	-0.2
1997	MON	39	25	0.8	1.2	-0.3	-0.5
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,021	110.2	78.8	45.5	28.6
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			4	0.3	0.9	-0.5	-0.6
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,025	110.6	79.7	44.9	28.0

Season	Team	Age	Games	eWins	eLosses	eWORL	eWOPA

Expected Player Won-Lost Records
						Value Decomposition
1980	CHN	22	18	0.7	0.6	0.3	0.2
1981	CHN	23	40	3.6	3.8	0.4	-0.2
1982	CHN	24	72	6.3	5.5	1.7	0.8
1983	CHN	25	66	8.1	5.7	3.5	2.2
1984	CHN	26	69	7.7	7.2	1.9	0.5
1985	CHN	27	65	8.7	7.5	2.6	1.1
1986	CHN	28	66	8.3	7.3	2.3	1.0
1987	CHN	29	62	7.2	5.9	2.2	1.0
1988	BOS	30	64	7.0	6.1	1.8	0.7
1989	BOS	31	64	4.8	4.0	1.4	0.6
+– 1990		32	64	7.2	5.8	2.6	1.4
	BOS		11	1.2	0.9	0.5	0.3
	SLN		53	6.0	4.9	2.1	1.1
1991	SLN	33	67	7.4	6.4	2.0	0.8
1992	SLN	34	70	6.2	5.6	1.4	0.4
+– 1993		35	62	5.2	5.4	0.8	-0.2
	NYA		8	0.5	0.2	0.3	0.2
	SLN		54	4.8	5.1	0.5	-0.4
1994	BAL	36	41	4.2	3.7	1.3	0.5
1995	CAL	37	52	5.1	4.2	1.6	0.8
+– 1996		38	54	2.5	2.4	0.5	0.0
	CAL		11	0.3	0.2	0.2	0.1
	CIN		43	2.1	2.2	0.3	-0.1
1997	MON	39	25	0.9	1.1	0.0	-0.2
			------	------	------	------	------
CAREER (reg. season)			1,021	101.0	88.1	28.2	11.4
			------	------	------	------	------
PostSeason (career)			4	0.5	0.8	-0.2	-0.3
			------	------	------	------	------
COMBINED			1,025	101.5	88.8	28.1	11.1

Lee Smith's strongest Hall-of-Fame credential was the fact that he held the major-league record for saves at the time of his retirement (and for almost nine full seasons thereafter).

The next two tables show the top 10 relief pitchers, through 1997 (Lee Smith's last season), ranked by pWins over positional average (pWOPA) and pWins over replacement level (pWORL). The numbers here reflect a player's total pWins across all positions; players are included in this table if the majority of their wins were accumulated as a relief pitcher.

	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

		Top 10 Relief Pitchers, through 1997 (ranked by career pWOPA)
1	Lee Smith	110.2	78.8	45.5	28.6
2	Rich Gossage	130.4	102.2	45.3	25.5
3	Dan Quisenberry	71.0	44.3	34.8	24.5
4	Bruce Sutter	87.6	62.7	36.1	22.9
5	Tom Henke	66.9	42.4	32.5	22.6
6	Hoyt Wilhelm	137.6	116.6	43.9	22.4
7	John Franco	80.3	56.3	34.2	21.9
8	Rollie Fingers	120.3	97.7	40.0	21.5
9	Doug Jones	71.0	48.3	31.5	20.8
10	Dave Righetti	99.0	78.8	33.2	18.9

	Player	pWins	pLosses	pWORL	pWOPA

		Top 10 Relief Pitchers, through 1997 (ranked by career pWORL)
1	Lee Smith	110.2	78.8	45.5	28.6
2	Rich Gossage	130.4	102.2	45.3	25.5
3	Hoyt Wilhelm	137.6	116.6	43.9	22.4
4	Rollie Fingers	120.3	97.7	40.0	21.5
5	Bruce Sutter	87.6	62.7	36.1	22.9
6	Lindy McDaniel	121.1	105.9	34.8	16.1
7	Dan Quisenberry	71.0	44.3	34.8	24.5
8	John Franco	80.3	56.3	34.2	21.9
9	Dave Righetti	99.0	78.8	33.2	18.9
10	Tom Henke	66.9	42.4	32.5	22.6

That's a nice showing by Lee Smith.

There are five pitchers in the National Baseball Hall of Fame whose careers ended in or before 1997 and were primarily relief pitchers (Dennis Eckersley technically fails on both counts: he pitched in 1998 and he earned more player wins as a starting pitcher than as a relief pitcher). They are the first five players listed in the second table.

If you accept the number of relief pitchers in the Hall of Fame from that time period, Player won-lost records suggest that the voters have chosen the right ones.

Article last updated: August 19, 2019

All articles are written so that they pull data directly from the most recent version of the Player won-lost database. Hence, any numbers cited within these articles should automatically incorporate the most recent update to Player won-lost records. In some cases, however, the accompanying text may have been written based on previous versions of Player won-lost records. I apologize if this results in non-sensical text in any cases.

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