On Sunday, John Smoltz will be officially inducted to the Hall of Fame alongside Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez and Craig Biggio. Smoltz joins Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine in Cooperstown after the three helped the Atlanta Braves to tremendous success in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Smoltz won 213 games and saved 154 games in his career, making him the only pitcher in baseball history with 200-plus wins and 150-plus saves. (Fellow Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley won 197 games with 390 saves.) The role change -- starter to reliever and eventually back to starter again -- was not necessarily by choice, however.
From 1998-99, Smoltz dealt with nagging elbow trouble, including surgery to remove bone chips and a pair of ligament strains that sent him to the DL twice in 1999. An offseason of rest didn't help -- Smoltz tore his elbow ligament during spring training in 2000 and underwent Tommy John surgery at age 32.
Tommy John surgery has a fairly high success rate, especially among younger pitchers in their physical prime, but it can often derail a career if the pitcher is over 30 like Smoltz was at the time. He missed the entire 2000 season and the first few weeks of the 2001 season before returning ... as a reliever. That's after winning 155 games with a 3.29 ERA from 1989-99.
"This might be the best thing for him without the heavy load of pitches and innings," said then-Braves manager Bobby Cox to Bill Zack of Morris News Service in 2001 when asked about moving Smoltz to the bullpen. Then-pitching coach Leo Mazzone added: "Knowing John, he'll be down in the pen, and all of a sudden he'll become a factor, a big factor."
Smoltz most definitely was a factor. As a reliever from 2001-04, he saved 154 games with a 2.65 ERA in 285 1/3 innings. He struck out 300 batters and walked only 49 unintentionally. Smoltz also saved three games and had a 1.96 ERA in 18 1/3 postseason innings those years. That said, he was frustrated by his lack of impact in October.
"You'll never hear me say anything cocky or outlandish, but I always thought if I was starting Game 1 in the playoffs, then we were ahead 2-0 in the series because I would get at least that many starts," said Smoltz to John Denton of Florida Today back in 2003. "That's just how strongly I felt that time of year. I don't have that kind of impact (as a reliever)."
The Braves moved Smoltz back to the rotation in 2005 and he was dominant: 14-7 with a 3.06 ERA in 229 2/3 innings. He won 16 games the next year and another 14 games the year after that. Smoltz's career can be broken down into three different phases.
Phase 1: Ace Starter (1988-99)
Smoltz went 157-113 with a 3.35 ERA (121 ERA+) in more than 2,400 innings from 1988-99. He averaged 213 2/3 innings per full season and won the 1996 NL Cy Young Award. These are the years when Smoltz built the vast majority of his Hall of Fame case.
Phase 2: Ace Reliever (2001-04)
Following Tommy John surgery in 2000, Smoltz saved those 154 games with a 2.65 ERA (162 ERA+) in 285 1/3 innings as Atlanta's closer during this four-season stretch. He was arguably the best reliever in the league, certainly on the short list of candidates.
Phase 3: Return to the Rotation (2005-09)
Smoltz returned to the rotation in 2005 after spending those four years in the bullpen. He went 50-34 with a 3.51 ERA (124 ERA+) in 773 1/3 innings from 2005-09, the phase in which he was augmenting his Hall of Fame case. The majority of the work had already been done by this point.
If not for the Tommy John surgery, Smoltz had a chance to win 300 games as a starter. Instead, it caused him to miss a season and spend four more in the bullpen, right in the prime of his career. Rather than derail his Hall of Fame chances, Smoltz overcame the injury, strengthened his Hall of Fame case as a reliever before returning to the rotation, and is now going to Cooperstown.
Smoltz is the first pitcher in history to be elected to the Hall of Fame after undergoing Tommy John surgery, but inevitably the Hall of Fame will one day be filled with pitchers just like him, guys who had their career interrupted by elbow reconstruction. For now, Smoltz is the first of his kind, a pitcher able to overcome Tommy John surgery while building an all-time great resume.
