DAYTON – Wright State Hall of Famer and Major League Baseball veteran Joe Smith announced his retirement on January 31 after 16 seasons in the big leagues with eight different teams.
Inducted into Wright State Athletics' Mary & Al Schwarz Hall of Fame in 2014, Smith still boasts the best Raider career earned run average at 1.53 and single-season ERA at 0.98. He was the Horizon League Pitcher of the Year in 2006 while also earning first team All-Horizon League and ABCA All-Region accolades that same season. Smith notched 13 saves in his final season at Wright State and 22 overall saves in his career as a Raider.
Drafted by the New York Mets in 2006, Smith made his MLB debut in 2007 for the Mets, also pitching for the Cleveland Indians, Los Angeles Angels, Chicago Cubs, Toronto Blue Jays, Houston Astros, Seattle Mariners and the Minnesota Twins.
He finished his professional career with 866 pitching appearances, the 36
th-most in Major League history, while his 228 career holds as a setup man are in the top five all-time since the stat began being tracked. Smith tossed 762.1 innings with a career 3.14 ERA, notching a 55-34 record with 30 saves, 228 holds, a 21.1 percent strikeout rate and an 8.1 percent walk rate. Beginning with his rookie season of 2007, Smith had a run of 13 straight seasons with an ERA of 3.83 or better – including five years with a sub-3.00 mark and two with a sub-2.00 – and didn't post an ERA over 4.00 until his age-37 season in 2021, never having a year where his ERA climbed to 5.00 or higher.
Smith was part of six postseason teams, including winning a World Series as a member of the 2016 Chicago Cubs. He made his first appearance in a World Series game in 2019 with the Astros, tossing a 1-2-3 inning against the Washington Nationals. Smith had appeared in 782 career MLB games prior to making his first appearance in the Fall Classic, the most by any active pitcher at the time. While pitching for the Twins in 2022, Smith faced fellow Wright State alum Sean Murphy, marking the first time two Raiders faced off against each other in the Major Leagues.
Smith and his wife, Allie LaForce, created the HelpCureHD Foundation to help those suffering from Huntington's Disease as well as helping aid in the journey to finding a cure and remove Huntington's Disease from the world.
