John Smoltz: Starter, Closer, Starter Again
John Smoltz won 213 games, saved 154 and took the Cy Young Award in 1996; this profile follows him from the Atlanta rotation to the bullpen and back, with the career numbers and what they do and do not show.
John Smoltz finished his career with 213 wins, 154 saves, 3,084 strikeouts and a 3.33 earned run average, and almost no one else in the history of the sport has a line that looks like it. Plenty of pitchers have been very good starters. A handful have been historic closers. Smoltz spent twelve seasons as a front-line starter, four as one of the best relievers in the National League, and then went back to the rotation and won 14, 16 and 14 games at ages 38 to 40. He is often described as the only pitcher with 200 wins and 150 saves, and the career line in the historical record backs that description up.
This profile follows the career in phases: the young starter of the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Cy Young winner of 1996, the surgery that ended his 2000 season and the years in the bullpen that followed, the return to the rotation, and the short, rough finish. The numbers are from the historical record through the 2025 season, and the piece says where that database cannot answer a question.
From Detroit to Atlanta
Smoltz was born on May 15, 1967, in the Detroit area, and he began his professional career in the Detroit Tigers organization. In August 1987 the Tigers traded him to Atlanta for the veteran pitcher Doyle Alexander, a deal made in the middle of a pennant race. Alexander helped the Tigers win their division that year, and Smoltz became a Brave for the rest of his career.
He reached the majors on July 23, 1988. His first partial season was not good: 2-7 with a 5.48 earned run average over 64 innings and 12 games. That is a fair reflection of a 21-year-old pitcher facing hitters who were seeing him for the first time. In 1989 he pitched in 33 games, went 12-11 with a 2.94 earned run average in 208 innings, and struck out 168. He was in the rotation to stay, and he made his first All-Star team that year.
The rotation that won 14 straight division titles
The Braves of the 1990s are now remembered for their rotation, and Smoltz was one-third of the best known version of it, alongside Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux. He arrived before Maddux, who came in 1993, and his early seasons were solid but not elite. In 1990 he went 14-11 with a 3.85 earned run average. In 1991 he went 14-13 with a 3.80, and the Braves went to the World Series, where they lost to Minnesota. In 1992 he went 15-12 with a 2.85 earned run average and led the National League with 215 strikeouts. In 1993 he went 15-11 with a 3.62 and 208 strikeouts.
The 1992 season is the one where the Braves' pitching began to look like something unusual. Smoltz did not win as many games as Glavine, who tied for the league lead with 20, but he beat everyone in strikeouts, and in the National League Championship Series he was named the series Most Valuable Player. The Braves went to a second consecutive World Series and lost again, this time to Toronto.
The question to ask about those early seasons is how to read a 15-12 record. A pitcher's win-loss record depends on run support and on the bullpen as well as on the pitcher, so a 2.85 earned run average with 12 losses is a reminder that wins and losses are a team result. The earned run average and the strikeout total are the better guides to what he did himself.
1996: 24 wins and the Cy Young Award
The peak came in 1996. Smoltz went 24-8 with a 2.94 earned run average in 253 and two-thirds innings, struck out 276 and led the National League in both wins and strikeouts. He won the Cy Young Award. The next-best National League pitcher in wins was Andy Benes with 18; in strikeouts, Hideo Nomo with 234. By any count it was a dominant year, and the Braves went 96-66, won the division and reached the World Series again, where they lost to the New York Yankees, four games to two.
| Year | W-L | ERA | Innings | Strikeouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1992 | 15-12 | 2.85 | 246.7 | 215 |
| 1995 | 12-7 | 3.18 | 192.7 | 193 |
| 1996 | 24-8 | 2.94 | 253.7 | 276 |
| 1997 | 15-12 | 3.02 | 256.0 | 241 |
| 1998 | 17-3 | 2.90 | 167.7 | 173 |
| 1999 | 11-8 | 3.19 | 186.3 | 156 |
The table shows a pitcher who held his run prevention steady: every earned run average on this list is under 3.20. His record bounced between 12-7 and 24-8 because wins and losses bounce. The 1998 line, 17-3, came in only 26 games and 167 and two-thirds innings, and an .850 winning percentage with a 2.90 earned run average is a good illustration of how much of a record is out of the pitcher's hands. The 1997 season, a 15-12 record with 241 strikeouts and a 3.02 earned run average, looks much like 1996 apart from the wins.
A World Series champion and a team that kept losing them
Smoltz was on the Braves' roster for five World Series teams in the sheet: 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996 and 1999. The Braves won only one of them, in 1995, and lost the other four. That is the outcome that shapes how the era is remembered, a team that won its division 14 times in a row and one World Series in the process. For the pitcher, the October record is a better record than the team's. His postseason line is 15 wins and 4 losses in 41 games, 27 of them starts, with a 2.67 earned run average, 209 innings and 199 strikeouts, across 14 postseasons.
It is worth putting that number in perspective. A pitcher who goes 15-4 across 14 postseasons is the kind who pitches in the biggest games for a decade and wins most of them. The sample is small by regular-season standards, 209 innings is about one full season's work, but it is large by postseason standards, and a 2.67 ERA over that span compares well with his regular-season 3.33.
The injury, and the second career
In 2000 Smoltz did not pitch in the majors at all. The season line is missing from the sheet because there was no season: he had surgery on his elbow, the procedure known as Tommy John surgery, which replaces a damaged ligament with a tendon from elsewhere in the body. In 2001 he returned, but not as a starter. The Braves asked him to close games. The sheet shows 36 games and 59 innings that year, a record of 3-3 and a 3.36 earned run average.
What followed was one of the most unusual stretches by a pitcher in the sport. He saved 10 games in 2001, so that year plus the three below make up his career total of 154. He had been a starter for his entire career; now he pitched an inning at a time. In 2002 he appeared in 75 games, pitched 80 and a third innings, struck out 85, and led the National League with 55 saves. In 2003 he appeared in 62 games with a 1.12 earned run average over 64 innings and 73 strikeouts, and he saved 45. In 2004 he made 73 appearances with a 2.76 earned run average and 85 strikeouts, and saved 44.
| Year | Games | Saves | ERA | Innings | Strikeouts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | 75 | 55 | 3.25 | 80.3 | 85 |
| 2003 | 62 | 45 | 1.12 | 64.3 | 73 |
| 2004 | 73 | 44 | 2.76 | 81.7 | 85 |
The 2003 earned run average is the number that stands out. 1.12 over 64 innings is a small sample by the standards of a starter and a normal one for a closer, and it gives the clearest view of what Smoltz was in this role: a pitcher with a fastball and a slider who could overpower hitters for an inning. In 2002 he won the Reliever of the Year Award and several other prizes, among them the Players Choice Comeback Player award. He was an All-Star in 2002 and 2003.
The context for the move is worth stating. Smoltz was a starter with an elbow that had just been rebuilt, and the bullpen asks for far fewer innings than the rotation: about 75 a year in these three seasons, against 230 in his starting years. The numbers show only that the arrangement worked, and the Braves won the division in each of those years.
Starter again, 2005 to 2008
At the end of 2004 Smoltz asked to go back to the rotation, and the Braves agreed. His first year back, 2005, was 14-7 with a 3.06 earned run average in 229 and two-thirds innings. In 2006 he went 16-9 with a 3.49 in 232 innings and 211 strikeouts. In 2007 he went 14-8 with a 3.11 in 205 and two-thirds innings and 197 strikeouts. Those three seasons add up to 44 wins and 667 innings.
The awards of that period reflect more than pitching. He won the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award and the Roberto Clemente Award in 2005, both given for character and community service. In 2007 he won the Branch Rickey Award, another humanitarian honor. Those are not pitching awards, but they are part of how he was regarded.
The decline was fast. In 2008 he made six starts, went 3-2 with a 2.57 earned run average in 28 innings, and struck out 36 before a shoulder injury ended the season. In 2009 he signed with the Red Sox, was released by them, and finished the year with St. Louis. His combined 2009 line is 3-8 with a 6.35 earned run average in 78 innings and 73 strikeouts. His final game was on September 30, 2009. The last season is a poor ending to a career, and it is also a small part of 3,473 innings.
The career in one line, and what it means
Add up the 21 seasons and the line is 213-155, a .579 winning percentage, with a 3.33 earned run average in 723 games, 481 starts and 3,473 innings. He completed 53 games and threw 16 shutouts. He allowed 3,074 hits and 288 home runs and walked 1,010 batters while striking out 3,084. His WHIP, walks plus hits per inning, was 1.18.
Convert those totals to rates and the picture is clear. He struck out about eight batters per nine innings, walked about 2.6 and allowed fewer than 0.75 home runs per nine. In the 1990s, when strikeout rates were lower than they are today, a rate of eight per nine was a power pitcher's rate.
He was also, as a hitter, a pitcher. His career batting line is .159 with 5 home runs and 61 runs batted in over 948 at-bats, and in 1997 he won a Silver Slugger Award as the best-hitting pitcher in the National League. That is a footnote, but it is a true and strange one. He hit .274 in 1999.
What the database cannot say
The historical record does not carry wins above replacement, so a reader who wants to compare Smoltz's 213 wins and 154 saves to a pure starter with 250 wins cannot do it from these tables. It does not carry Statcast data, so it cannot say how hard he threw or how his slider moved. It also cannot say how much of his career-best seasons depended on the defense and ballparks behind him.
It is a good idea to be careful with one common comparison. People sometimes add his wins and saves and treat the total as a single career. They are different jobs, and the 154 saves came in a role where he pitched about 75 innings a year. His case for the Hall of Fame rests on the 213 wins and 3,084 strikeouts as a starter, the postseason record, and the four years of elite closing that sit on top of them.
Hall of Fame and what came after
Smoltz was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2015, his first year on the ballot, with 455 votes out of 549 cast, where 412 were needed. He went in the same year as Craig Biggio, whose career is profiled separately. He had made eight All-Star teams, in 1989, 1992, 1993, 1996, 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2007, and after his playing days he became a television analyst, where his understanding of how pitchers work was clearly an asset.
Common questions
How many saves did John Smoltz have? 154, all of them from 2001 through 2004. The seasons were 10, 55, 45 and 44, and the 55 in 2002 led the National League.
Did he win the Cy Young Award? Once, in 1996, when he went 24-8 with a 2.94 earned run average and 276 strikeouts.
Which Braves World Series did he play in? The sheet lists 1991, 1992, 1995, 1996 and 1999. The Braves won only the 1995 Series.
How good was he in the postseason? He went 15-4 with a 2.67 earned run average in 41 games, 27 of them starts. He was the 1992 National League Championship Series Most Valuable Player.
Why did he miss 2000? He had elbow surgery, a Tommy John procedure, and the whole season was lost.
Where to go next
For the other members of the great Braves rotation, read the profile of Tom Glavine. For the pitchers who built careers as closers, Trevor Hoffman is the natural comparison. For a modern example of a long career as a starter, see Justin Verlander. To read the numbers in the tables above, use the box score guide. The site's leaders page lets you check these career totals against the rest of the sport.