When more borderline HOF guys get their call

As a baseball fan, I'd probably be more of a big hall kind of guy - but I thought it was a joke when I found out through scrolling through a social media post that apparently Smith and Baines were elected to the Hall of Fame through the 2019 Today's Game Era Ballot.

Baines' election to the Hall of Fame will probably cause just about every numbers oriented analysts' heads to explode - I won't begrudge or bemoan his induction to the Hall since there are too many writers messing around with someone's actual accomplishments in the guise of being objective.

Personally, I consider Baines in the middle of the pack as far as a Hall of Very Good guy, but in a roundabout way - Baines probably got some extra consideration for the 134 hits he didn't get towards that 3,000th hit club he missed out on.

The last card I touched featuring Baines was his 1991 Upper Deck [#562] - it went in my awesome action collection as a game face card; I like the image of him on the on-deck circle, about to swing while doing his high leg kick.

As far as Smith, though he once held the all-time saves record, I've always thought of him as mostly a junk wax era journeyman reliever - however, with Trevor Hoffman getting into the Hall of Fame recently and with Mariano Rivera on the way, someone had to fit Smith in-between the two in order to have a little run of modern era closers.

Maybe an obvious non-Rivera candidate in the next several years will likely be Billy Wagner - depending on who is on the ballot.

My favorite Smith card was his 1996 Upper Deck card [#266] because while it obviously shows him with the Angels - it was also a seemingly more elaborate image setup compared to a typical baseball card picture.

Considering the Hall candidates - Lee Smith

Lee Smith

Pro - once was time the all-time saves leader, Smith racked up 478 saves in a 18 year career. He had 30 or more saves in 10 seasons and 40 or more saves in three of those seasons.

Smith was an intimidating figure 6'6" but never really had the 'signature theatrics' of a modern-day closer from the last 30 years - it seemed like he was the time who went about his business closing games out and then had a beer after the game.

Con - Smith piled up a bunch of saves in the regular season, but in his only postseason appearances in 1984 and 1988, he was 0-2 in four games and was bombed for nine hits and five runs in 5 1/3 innings. If his teams had advanced further than they did in the playoffs, Smith's accomplishments in general would be held in higher regard, especially if he was a closer for a World Series championship team.

Yes/No - I'd lean towards 'no.'

With the elections of Bruce Sutter and Goose Gossage, maybe a precedent has been set to look deeper into role of a closer as far as consideration for the Hall - Smith benefits because he was pretty good for a long time, regardless of how many teams he played for. Unfortunately, his lack of postseason glory with the Chicago Cubs or the Boston Red Sox maybe the reason he is looking in from the outside.