same, but it was entertaining for what it was so Im not gonna complain too hard seeing as this doesn't need to exist in the first place. He made me wonder about WAR and how it interacts with pitching, and to be clear I havent watched a single baseball game in over a decade. So if Im interested, he is doin something right.
@@craigmanning467 Ryan pitched for 30 years but he wasn't supreme for all those years. And Johnson pitched in the big leagues till age 46, same as Ryan. He threw a perfect game (something Ryan never did) at age 40. He stuck out 19 in an AL game and 20 in an NL game; stuck out over 300 batters in both the NL & AL; won 20 games in both the NL & AL; won Cy Youngs in both the NL & AL; won over 300 games in his career; and won a World Series MVP in 2001. He was still throwing over 100 MPH at age 39, until a knee injury cost him velocity. His career WAR is 103.5 to Ryan's 83.6. Randy Johnson was every bit as great as Nolan Ryan.
Not a chance. The biggest myth about Ryan has been that he played on bad teams which is simply not true. Ryan had a w/l of 52.6%, playing on teams that had a w/l of 50.4, meaning, Nolan was marginally better than the teams he played on. Compare that with his former buddy and teammate, the late, great Tom Seaver, who had a w/l of 60.3%, playing on teams with a w/l of 48.2%. In 26 seasons and 616 lifetime decisions, Ryan was only 32 games above .500, and it's not because he played on bad teams.
@@jamesanthony5681 You just proved Ryan played on completely average teams. Ryan can't magically make the California Angels, Houston Astros, or Texas Rangers offenses wake up for his particular starts, so he's susceptible to losing contests where he gives up 3 or fewer runs in 8 or 9 innings. If Ryan was playing for a team with a consistent offense, he's a 400 game winner, plain and simple.
@@toilet_cleaner_man Nah. He wasn't good enough to win 400 games, plain and simple, and I'm not talking about lack of velocity. Shohei Ohtani went 15-9 with a 2.33 era in 2022, for an Angels Team that finished 33 games out with a w/l of 45.1%. That's damn good. Steve Carlton won the CY in 1972 (27-10, 1.97 ERA) for an even worse Phillies team with a w/l of 37.8%. I can find you *MANY* other examples, including Walter Johnson who played on bad Senators teams his whole career. Look him up. Ryan played on teams that were good enough, evidenced by his teams' w/l of 50.4%. He was only marginally better than the teams he played on. And for the vast majority of pitchers that have played in the big leagues, they have played on some good teams, some bad teams, but mostly mediocre/average teams. Ryan wasn't a 400 game winner for good reasons, including lack of consistency. Yes, he pitched 7 no-hitters and struck out 5,714 batters. However, he never won a Cy Young in 25 big league seasons, and *THAT* is telling.
Ed Bears: Go back and look at Ryan's pitching starts for the '87 season. He had some excellent outings, some mediocre games, and some bad games. He was inconsistent: some very good stretches followed by mediocre and bad parts. It just so happened that his ERA averaged out to 2.76.
Super fun and interesting vid! Wish you had dove more into what about his stats confused the different types of WAR so much. You kind of posed this question at the end and then left it as an open question
I think a few other things that hurt Ryan statistically are his terrible fielding percentage, huge amount of wild pitches & huge amount of stolen bases against him. Lastly, his effectiveness dropped more than other pitchers when he was pitching from the stretch. All those add up to putting a lot of guys on base & advancing them a lot. He was untouchable at times, but when his game cracked, it became a chasm.
You probably never saw him in person. I did multiple times. He was different. Ball made a Crack when it hit the mitt. I saw Bob Gibson. They were different
I used to be a SABR member, and I’ll state honestly that I could never figure out Nolan Ryan at all. As you say, he is SUCH an outlier, how can you include him in any kind of rational statistical universe? I mean, the guy has been proven to have thrown harder than any other pitcher (see the wonderful documentary “Fastball”), and he did it *for 27 years*. What are we supposed to make of that? I will note a couple things: Ryan had what is widely considered the smoothest motion of pitcher in history, and I’m sure that counts towards his longevity. The other thing is: He was just damn consistent. Dave Stewart won 20 games 5 seasons in a row, and he ain’t in the Hall of Fame. Ryan ate up innings, struck out tons of people, and kept doing it for nearly 3 decades. That’s insane. I think at some point, some future math genius will figure out a way to take into account things like the quality of the teams players were on (usually average to lousy in Ryan’s case), and such ephemeral things like “intimidation” and “stuff”, and maybe we’ll be able to analyze him them. But until that mythical future day, it’s a goddamn mystery to me.
I had a thought experiment I took to paper after the first time I watched this video, and got in an argument about the viability of Nolan reaching 400 wins: How many wins would Nolan Ryan have if his offense scored the league average runs per game? In the end, he came out to 499 wins given the circumstances, which is is obviously way too much to assume he could get even if he played 27 seasons for the Dodgers or Yankees, but it does show that he lost quite alot of games because the guys getting paid to hit the ball with the big stick couldn't hit the ball with the big stick. I think that, above all else, Ryan is a reminder that statistics are not the be-all-end-all. It is beyond obvious to the people who watched Ryan pitch that he is one of the absolute best pitchers to ever pick up a baseball, but most do not surmise that from a quick glance at his BBR page, where they _see_ a golden K and BB, but focus in on a rather unimpressive 3.19 era and 112 ERA+ without the context of him shoving like it 1899 for 27 years. It's why all-time baseball lists are such a wash for most people, with how nigh impossible it is to compare shooting stars like Koufax and Martinez to iron giants like Young and Ryan, most inevitably fall into using the dreaded "C" word: Compiler.
As an (ex-)SABR member: Why you guys never thought of using opposing w/RC+ for pitchers? It seems to be the best available stat there is? Almost everything is included (base hits, walks, etc are weighted on value, parks are factored in, stats are era adjusted). The only thing missing seems to be the correct use of outs. I thought its obvious that K´s are worse for batters (thus better for pitchers) than FO/GOs. As far I understand it: Outs are treated equal so far (= flaw in the calc). After all this, put the numbers in a big machine, top it off with some nice standard deviations to mimimize flaws that come with greater (nowadays )and way lesser (yesteryears) talent pools... and there you have it: The one magic number for pitchers, comparable across all eras. No need to wait for the far future. My gut tells me Nolan Ryan comes out on top. Not by much, but given the traditional stats, eye test, longevity of excellence, its most likely him being the GOAT.
Call that stat MUF ("muff") for "makeup factor". If you are building a pitcher who is scary to dig in against, you think of Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. Fastball is one of the best sports documentaries ever.
Watched Ryan pitch his entire career. Remember in 1980 when he got a million dollar a year contract to pitch for the Astros. There were several write ups that Ryan was out for strikeouts over the win. All I know, he gave 100% every start. He played on horrible Ranger teams and still won. He is the greatest STRIKEOUT pitcher of all time. Best pitcher I ever saw was Greg Maddox.
I agree with you. Ryan was the strikeout king; over 5000 Ks and the 7 (seven!!) no-hitters are mind-blowing stats. But Greg Maddux was the best pitcher I ever saw too. There are pitchers that get to that special "zone" in their careers where they are the best in the game. Randy Johnson, Bob Gibson come to mind (and money pitcher? How about Jack Morris!). But Maddux was so so good. From 1992-1995, he was 75-29 with an ERA of 1.98. And won 4 Cy Young awards- in a row. Case closed.
He definitely prioritized Ks over wins. That's why he also holds the record for walks. He was willing to walk as many hitters as he needed to get 3 Ks in the inning. If they flew out thats not going to help his stats!!
I gotta agree on Maddux being the best pitcher i ever saw. Most people argue that, from that era, Pedro Martinez was better, but personally I'd take Maddux (or Randy Johnson) over Martinez.
There have been more terrifying: Randy Johnson and J.R. Richard, both of whom were 6'10" and 6'8" respectively, and both thew hard. How'd you like to face those 2 guys?
Nolan Ryan has stood out in my mind as the iron man of pitching. His longevity with the fastball - way above any other. The number of complete games and innings pitched is also astonishing!
Foolish recommended and man, let me tell you that this video is on pair with some of Foolish Baseball’s best videos i’ve seen. Keep the great work man, I’m sure you’ll be huge in this!
@@ben________3156 Ha.. Noooo! Enjoy those kind of vids, but never ever go back to pay the greedy cheaters, criminals. Finally they made the deal with th devil (gambling). After roids, fixing games, corking bats, using "foreign substances", stealing signs and the heck else.... Better give your hard earned dollars me.... I am on strike since 1994. No full game seen since then, nothing bought of MLB merchandise. It works. Dont feed those mobsters.
The fight is a factor. It just is. That fight makes Nolan Ryan's career as a pitcher better. It makes baseball better. The world is a better place because of that fight.
We all know he has thrown 7 no hitters ( a record) He has also thrown 12- 1 hitters and 18 - 2 hitters. He the only pitcher to strike out the side on 9 pitches in both leagues. June 14th 1974 he wind up throwing 235 pitches in 13 innings. He struck out 19 batters and faced a total of 58 batters. He would only get 3 days rest and pitch 6 scoreless innings vs the Yankees. He also has struck out 7 different father/ son in his career. I might be a little bias but I think he is the greatest pitcher of all time.
I’m not a huge fan of baseball, but I find myself collecting baseball cards and watching videos like this. Then I noticed you only have, like 375 subs. So I subbed. Good video
I google searched, “why is Nolan Ryan’s WAR so low?” Lol your video was almost to the top. I clicked and was not disappointed. Great breakdown, editing, etc. Subscribed and will be checking out more!
Nolan Ryan pitched in a few eras that strike outs were less common than now. Johnson got to pitch while strikeouts were on the rise. Just a little food for thought. That being said, they were both terrifying to face.
Nolan Ryan is my favorite pitcher ever, I don't really care about goat discussions or whatever, to me, there is no pitcher more exciting than him. Great video, by the way! Loved the breakdown.
I like the bWAR better, more straightforward. Prevent runs. It's not supposed to be a predictive model. As for Ryan, the walks bring him down, but also his inability to field his position, the wild pitches he throws, and how he was pretty bad at holding runners on.
I've always liked bWAR better for pitchers... especially when it comes to award considerations. There are a good number of pitchers that FIP really doesn't apply well to, whether it's ignoring hard contact leading to more hits (looking at you Patrick Corbin, who has had a FIP a full run lower than his ERA the last two seasons) or not properly weighing pitchers on the extremes for per 9 stats. Also, getting on my soapbox, the FIP calculation should change to BB%, HR%, and K% and not per 9 stats because poor defense absolutely does impact per 9 stats. Errors and bad plays extend innings, which inflate per 9 stats while good defense shortens innings, which lowers per 9 stats.
@@BaseballsNotDead Mariano Rivera seems to destroy FIP as well....Is anyone really going to say he didn't induce weak contact and all of those broken bats were just luck? Seaver too. I think he has like 30 less fWAR than bWAR. Maybe you'd know this. Is FIP based on the LG average BABIP or a BABIP of .300? Bc Seaver played when LG Babip was like .277 as opposed to .296 so there just were alot more outs on balls in play.
I don't know anything about baseball stats so I can't comment on that. But I can say that while Gretzky is generally considered the GOAT for hockey, there are at least some arguments for other players such as Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr or if you ask Gretzky himself, Gordie Howe. The problem is complicated though, defensive production is really hard to measure in hockey historically as a lot of the metrics used weren't recorded before the 2000s and there is also that era thing as Gretzky played in a time where goal scoring was very high for a long time. Out of the 4 I mentioned, I think only Lemieux has a solid case as being the GOAT since he played in a similar period, and is the only person to even approach Gretzky's Points Per Game numbers. If it weren't for the fact that Lemieux had to retire early, which he did come back from for a little while, he very well could have approached Gretzky's totals.
Mario retired and went into the HOF with the highest PPG ever. He was still great in the 00's but the PPG went down. There are quite a few arguments you can make for him and I think he is the best. But stats are stats are stats.
Lemieux was crazy-talented. Sadly, cancer hit him just as he was putting together a year that might have surpassed even Gretzky's Chamberlain-eque season records in goals and points. Then he started having back problems that cost him a full season, and the league went to clutching and grabbing leading to his early retirement at like 31. If not for the cancer, it's entirely possible that he's an open-shut case for greatest. As it is, I think it's safe to say he's the most talented person to ever lace up skates, with due respect to Gretzky and Orr.
@@JonSmith-hk1bq I also think Lemieux would have translated better into the modern game than Gretzky. Much of the stuff Gretzky did isn''t possible anymore, the behind the net stuff, controlling the puck for extended periods of time throught the neutral zone. Those things will get you killed today. Than there were the absolute slugs on defense that could barely skate. The goaltending was terrible compared to modern systems and equipment. Gretzky was awesome and I still think he is probably the best, but he benefitted from the era he played in maybe more than anybody in any sport. And he certainly isn't miles ahead of the other greats, even if the numbers say so.
@@davidfoster2629 Well, it's easy to see how Lemieux would translate to any version of the game. Even today, he'd still be a physical beast and would be one of the biggest, fastest, and most skilled players on the ice. Add in his incredible hands and all-time passing ability and, yeah, no doubt he'd be dominant today. To compare him to an NBA player, you'd probably look at Lebron James. Just a physical freak who can attack the goal and is simultaneously one of the most gifted distributors in the game. Still, I wouldn't downplay Gretzky. While I share my doubts that he would be dominant today, a lot of that is because his offensive vision was so far ahead of its time. Now the game is indeed faster, but I do wonder if his incredible vision would still compensate for it all and provide different types of opportunities. Instead of waiting for a play to develop, would Gretzky instead be able to see a play develop in the shorter window of time the game provides and still prosper? Quite possibly. To compare him to an NBA player, you'd probably look at Larry Bird. A player seemingly transported from the modern day into the early 80s. Able to do things that defenses at the time just weren't prepared to match (other than, in Gretzky's case, just have someone shadow him all game).
Ryan is about where he belongs in the WAR stat imo. Because of the walks I feel like he was surpassed by guys like Pedro, Clemens, Maddux, Unit, etc and is very similar to Steve Carlton (who is a very underrated pitcher). Interestingly enough Ryan is the career leader in hits per innings pitched, which made more impressive by the fact that he played for 27 years. Most pitchers on that leaderboard retired young so they didn't have decline years factored in but ryan still beat them all out. Also Blyleven has a surprisingly high WAR. When he played he seemed like a borderline hall of famer, not one of the top 10 pitchers in the last 70 years
Great video. I once heard an interview with Nolan. He Basically said that he would strike a batter out or walk him but would not give in and give them something to hit. You failed to mention that Nolan has the all-time fewest hits per 9 inn. Maybe his walks were not only a result of his early career wildness, but an unwillingness to allow a batter to do his number 1 job - get a hit!
Yeah, but whether a batter gets a hit or a walk it's the same end result... a runner gets on base. That's what the offense wants and it doesn't matter to them how they do it. At least by forcing the batter to hit the ball and put it in play, it allows for the defense the chance to make an out as opposed to a walk where you're just giving it to them for free. The pitcher's job is to keep runners off the basepath.
@@1981lashlarue yeah... Is the same if the bases are loaded. But if you have an empty bag, it isn't the same thing at all. You also might be forgetting that Nolan Ryan has the career record for lowest opponent batting percentage, so even with walks and hbp out of the mix, they aren't hitting it, which means he could walk 2 guys per inning and still not give up a run.
Nolan Ryan is ABSOLUTELY one of the best pitchers in the history of the game. With a game that has SO much history, it really is difficult to say if he’s the best ever. But who cares! Just enjoy his accomplishments and his pit bull desire to win ball games.
It's not difficult at all. He played at the same time as Tom Seaver. Tom Seaver was better. So were Randy Johnson, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Sandy Koufax, Warren Spahn, Lefty Grove, Whitey Ford, Satchell Paige, Christy Mathewson, Pete Alexander, Walter Johnson, and more. Nolan Ryan might be a top 25 pitcher, but it depends on how much you value longevity, how much you value consistency/reliability, and how much you value a pitcher's ability to be absolutely dominant in a game.
He played for so long and so well I think he's a great pitcher never mind anything else. He also was a name I knew despite never watching him play. I think to be a real baseball legend your legacy needs to last beyond the years you play.
Some men transcend stats. Nolan Ryan is one of them. If you had to pick a single pitcher in history you wouldn't want to face for a single at bat, it would be him.
@@bwfextreme It was because of that event that they enforce a player wear a batting helmet. So his statement is true, I wouldn't want to face Ryan who can throw 100+ mph with no control.
@@DarthRevan991 There would be something scarier, a young and angry Yordano Ventura throwing around 100 mph with decent although not great control. You know he can pitch further away, but he's headhunting when angry. Edit: Fortunately, the other pitches were just average on movement so he'd just end up making guys ground out mistiming the baseball.
I grew up as a fan of the 90's Indians. Nevertheless I had a poster on my wall of Nolan Ryan and fell in love after some book about pitchers for little kids described him. I'm happy to say that this is exactly the kind of perplexing performance I demand out of people I like.
He's the greatest of all time, he pitched in the 60's, 70's, 80's and the 90's never slowing down, throwing no hitters in his 40's. His curveball left some of the best hitters at the plate scratching their heads wondering why they even came up to bat.
@@shanevonhagen bc his control sucked and he was a bad fielder who struggled from the stretch. If he had even just slightly below average control he would have been the best ever.
@@shanevonhagen best pitcher ever...Unit, Rocket, Pedro or Seaver...anyone of those 4 I wouldn't argue. Gun to my head: Randy Johnson, they way he completely neutralized left handed batters and his K/rate plus his durability & longevity. 5 Cy Youngs...seven 300 K seasons.
Nolan Ryan's control got a lot better later in his career. In New York and California (1966 to 1979), he had 2691 1/3 IP, 2909 K and 1646 BB. In Houston and Texas (1980 to 1993), he had 2694 2/3 IP, 2805 K and 1149 BB. About the same IP and strikeouts, but about 70% as many walks. Source: Raw data from Retrosheet, compiled by me.
If you get a chance, watch the Netflix documentary “Facing Nolan”. It’s worth the watch. Best part was when they said Robin Ventura was asked to comment he declined.
I never really appreciated Nolan Ryan through mid-career: he seemed like a wild fireballer who intimidated hitters with his velocity but his won-lost record was mediocre. Yet, he endured - and the next thing I know, he's won 300 games and pitched 26 seasons. Hall-of-Fame achievements. Definitely a gifted athlete. I didn't know where these modern metrics placed him and some would say his longevity earned him the recognition he receives today. But I'm not sure. I know now that Babe Ruth was a student of the game - not just from the movies. Ruth had been a pitcher, so he took a pitcher's mindset into the batter's box. He was much smarter than most gave him credit for. Same with Nolan Ryan. He adjusted as he aged - and he learned to pitch and not just "let 'er rip!" And his conditioning was no accident. Good genes - yes - but wisdom and discipline to match. Like Cy Young, Ryan pitched in both leagues. He earned his spot in the pantheon of great players. Good video.
Ryan’s stats are skewed by his control problems when he was younger. He had better pitching coaches in Houston and Texas. He learned to use his change up effectively. As a result, he had his best years in his 30’s and 40’s.
Grew up in Middle Georgia, so the Braves were always my team. I watched Aaron break Ruth's record on live TV. Phil Niekro was our best pitcher ever for a long time. Nolan Ryan might not be the best pitcher ever, but he is my FAVORITE pitcher ever. Any time he took the mound, you had a legit chance of seeing a no-no or at least a high strikeout performance. I would love to have seen him playing for the Braves instead of the Astros. I would have always pitched him and Niekro on back to back days- that would have been awesome.
As an 11 yr big league scout and 28 yr coach I enjoyed this video. Put that man on winning teams and they rename Cooperstown to Ryanstown. Thanks for making video.
The best metric we have is quality starts. It’s far from perfect but it illustrates that the starter did his job. 62% of his starts were a quality start. Not sure what the highest percentage ever is but 62% of starts for 27 years is pretty damn impressive
The problem with that is it does not take ballpark or defense into consideration. A pitcher that had an Andruw Jones like CF and a Swanson like SS is going to get more quality starts than an identical guy with a Bichette like SS and Randal Grichuk like CF. That's the whole point of FIPS. As for percentages, I have no idea but I can tell you Maddux has just 1 less QS in around 220 less innings.
I really don't know, I mean Carlton, Perry, and Niekro (and old guys like Young, obvs) pitched the same or more career innings and had higher WARs and were better in some different key stats. And longevity is a huge part of Ryans argument. I really don't think you could argue his peak was the best ever.
Let me try my 2 cents. The three best strikeout pitchers I watched were Nolan, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson. I see that Randy also has a very high difference in the last two categories. I believe that this can be boiled down to pitching philosophy, control and best 2nd pitch. Roger - the best control of all these. Second best pitch early in his career was just based on location, his 4 seamer on the outside corner to right handed hitters. Later he developed an outstanding slider (and may have taken vitamins and eaten healthy). The slider can either be a strikeout or a weakly hit ball in play. His philosophy was dictated by hitter and ball/strike count. Randy - early the wildest of the three, but after lessons from Tom House - good control. His delivery and stature made his slider almost unhittable (could have been his first or second best pitch) but it could also cause a lot of walks. His philosophy changed with his control and his slider landing for strikes. Nolan - good control on his fastball and later his circle change, good luck with everything else. Philosophy was to strike out everything...and his second best pitch was his circle change, which is also a strikeout pitch. So he is probably 40% more likely to strike out a hitter after a walk than let's say than Greg Maddux and 20% more likely than another pitcher. So his predicted outcome compared to his actual outcome would vary wildly.
I have to disagree with Clemens here. He was never a slider guy. He was fastball - curveball early on, and probably around age 30 added the splitter, and by age 33 he was fully Roger 2.0 which was fastball - splitter, and an occasional slider....He ditched the curve by the mid 90s.
Ryan was before my time, but is still one of my favorite players ever. His unique combination of durability and power allowed him to set records that may never be broken. While not the greatest pitcher ever, he certainly stands among the best all time. His natural gifts made him to pitching what Wilt Chamberlain was to general athletics--an outlier in all respects. Doctors need to clone his UCL to be used in all Tommy John surgeries. It might save a lot of pitchers reinjuring themselves. Oh, and some of Randy Johnson's success can my tied to his work with Ryan. Ryan, as an outlier himself, realized that the Big Unit was not quite like other pitchers and needed to make adjustments to his arm angle to be more consistent, which really helped Randy Johnson take the last step to becoming the monster of a pitcher we know today.
Completely unrelated to pitching but I always laughed at Randy Johnson while he was batting. To me he looked like someone plucked an ostrich and gave him a bat when he was at the plate.
I would want to see a breakdown of how Ryan performed vs. elite hitters of his era, and how he performed vs average hitters of his era, and then have those figures compared to other highly-respected pitchers, adjusting for each individual player's opposing-batter pools' strength relative to Ryan's, if such a thing is even possible. If it's not, that las bit could be simply comparisons between Ryan and his direct contemporaries. IDK much of anything in terms of who played when, but surely there were at least a couple guys throughout those 27 years that could stack up in some manner. You know what I mean, right? Anyway, the intent with this would be to try and determine the impact of various "intangible" aspects, specifically things like intimidation, presence, rumors, reputation, and other vaguely synonymous concepts. It's my guess, that because Ryan is so hyped, and was so hyped during their career, and also because of their wild and very powerful pitches which he kept throwing despite being wild, and his coaches/managers kept giving him the green light on, might have been mentally detrimental to his opponents, sometimes causing their optimal possible performance vs. Ryan to be lesser than one might expect. Like, for hypothetical and exceptionally simple example, a .250 batter vs. Ryan on a normal day over their careers averages .200. However, on some occasions, something about the way Ryan stares the plate down sends a shiver up their spine, and their batting average for days like that is .180. Hounestly, it seems like a whole bunch of work for what could possibly turn out to be absolutely zero insight into the topic at all, but, if the task were effortless and instant, that's where I'd look.
There’s a reason why he confuses WAR so much. The answer to every question, which were all very different is yes. It’s hard to explain. He’s one of those players a good number of us watched. Even though I saw him at the end of his career, he still carried an almost folklore rep like players my grandfather spoke of, and was still throwing no-hitters. If analytics are going to be thrown into junkyard compactor by anyone, it should be Nolan Ryan.
I could probably write an entire essay on the greatness of Nolan Ryan but I'll start with something small. Nolan Ryan has no equal, in terms of longevity. He reinvented himself at least twice throughout his career, with different changes to his mechanics. The reason he's so great is Bob House (look him up if you or your kid wants to be a better pitcher). As for his stats, I feel like the "+" stats for hitters and pitchers are a great equalizer as it takes into account the players during a player's career and park factors. That being said, Nolan Ryan's career ERA+ is 112, just 12% better than average. His career ERA was 3.19. Though the counting stats are cool, I find that the averaging stats like ERA, K/9, ERA+, WHIP, and others, carry a bit more weight when determining who the best pitcher is. This doesn't make him even a "great" player, just good. He also wasn't showered with Cy Young and MVP votes throughout his career. The only accolade he received was 8 all-star selections, that's it. At the end of the day, your job is to prevent as many runs as possible and for as long as possible. Though he gave up his fair share of walks and hits, run prevention was always a B- capability of Ryan's. The term "too small of a sample size" has Nolan's career in mind because you really needed whole seasons to see exactly how good he was. All that being said, you have to ask yourself two questions and figure out which is more important: would I rather have X-player in one game? Or would I rather have X-player to build a franchise around? The single game question is always interesting because of the acute nature of it and needing to make a split decision with immediate payout. However, I wouldn't pick Nolan for that game. A contemporary like Pedro Martinez or Randy Johnson would fit that mold better. But who to build a franchise around? I would take a Nolan Ryan once a day and twice on Sundays, without a doubt in my mind. Over his career, he showed Ace flashes time and again but I'd have no problem building around another Nolan Ryan for nearly 30 years, even as my go-to number 2 starter. I'll rotate through number 1's like Pedro, Maddux, Randy, Bob Feller, deGrom, and others, but the rock of my rotation HAS to be Nolan Ryan.
You had me until your last paragraph. My franchise-builder pitcher would be Tom Seaver, who was better than Ryan, more consistent than Ryan, and a pitcher (Seaver) who played 20 seasons himself. Seaver WAS the Mets franchise in the late '60's to mid-latter '70's, bringing a World Series in '69. Ryan wouldn't make my starting rotation at any point in his career. Seriously. Yes, he played 26 seasons, had 7 no-hitters, and struck out 5,714 batters.
Who to build a franchise around? I'd go with Warren Spahn (assuming that I don't lose him for 3+ years to World War II). He led the league in complete games 9 times, including 7 straight years. He led the league in wins 8 times, including 5 straight years. He won 363 games despite missing about 3 and a half seasons to World War II. He had a better career ERA than Nolan Ryan (3.09 to 3.19), a better ERA+ (119 to 112), and came up just short in innings (5386 to 5243.2) despite missing more than three years. If you want longevity, Warren Spahn is the choice over Nolan Ryan. If you want reliability and a guy that can win you a Cy Young award by being the best pitcher in the league during his peak, there are dozens of better choices than Nolan Ryan.
thx 4 uploadIng. I will appreciate if u calculate other teammates's WAR and whether there is a discerpancy for Norlan's WAR or not as if u accumulate WAR then i will be close to team's winnIng games.
If you get a chance get Joe Posnanski's book "The Baseball 100" - his articles about Ryan and Gaylord Perry are very enlightening. In addition, in his first postseason start, the Angels lost 6-3 in 10 innings to the Orioles - but Ryan allowed the tying run on a walk, a stolen base (which he was never good at preventing), a wild pitch (his 277 WP are the most of any 20th century pitcher) and a sac fly. As Posnanski makes his point very well, Ryan could have been the BEST pitcher in MLB history but he was certainly the most unique!
You know why Ryan was still pitching in the 80s, 90s? He drew crowds. The front office liked that way more than his ability as a pitcher. He was a good pitcher. Of whatever the advertisers were selling, I forget which ones! *(Advil?)
I remember watching the Ryan express when I was a kid in the 60s when he was with the Mets with Tom Seaver and I knew then that Nolan Ryan was better and would be great ! And by the time he went to the Angels he really proved it.... throwing faster than anybody I knew ! The man's a Legend and the best Pitcher ever ! Next is Walter Johnson and Satchel Paige. Paige wasn't the fastest thrower but had great accuracy and his arm lasted VERY long !
Nolan Ryan *WAS NOT* better than Tom Seaver. Plain and simple. Ryan threw hard and ended up with more strikeouts than anybody, but Ryan had a w/l of 52.6%, playing on teams that had a w/l of 50.4, meaning, Nolan was marginally better than the teams he played on. Compare that with Tom Seaver who had a w/l of 60.3%, playing on teams with a w/l of 48.2%. In 26 seasons and 616 lifetime decisions, Ryan was only 32 games above .500, and it's not because he played on bad teams.
@@jamesanthony5681 That's your O.P. but Ryan lasted longer and threw harder and won when it counted. Even in the 69 miracle Mets season Seaver didn't shine like the rest of the pitchers did. P.S. As a kid I knew Seaver was a terrific pitcher and came off the mound hard (like Koufax did) but he didn't win at times it was needed and didn't last AT ALL like Ryan...who literally got better even when he left the Mets.
@@bigdeal6852 In the '69 series, Seaver went 1-1, with an ERA of 3.00 (WHIP of 1.00) against a very good Orioles team. That's not bad, not scintillating, but he did win a game. Ryan won when it counted? When? His post season is average and limited (w/l 2-2, 3.07), with a small sample size. Seaver pitched 20 seasons, and Ryan 26, but who had the better career? I don't care who threw harder, Seaver (and others) threw hard enough. And when you're judging a pitcher who has velocity, movement and location, velocity is the least important. Ryan got better when he left the Mets? I would hope so. He was 29-38 with the Mets, with a w/l of 43.3%. He pitched better out of the limelight and pressure of NYC.
Here's an interesting angle I never hear anyone talk about.. pitcher OPS. It occurred to me if batter OPS (OBA +SLG) was a quick and dirty measure of Hitting ability the opponents OPS should be a similarly good measure of pitchers.. When I ran this stat a while back the top pitchers of all time were. 1. Clayton Kershaw 2. Sandy Koufax 3. Nolan Ryan 4. Pedro Martinez. Everyone else was way higher.. don't remember the exact numbers. And Ryan did it with a LOT more games and innings. Koufax retired right at the peak.. Kershaw hasn't declined yet, and Martinez had a somewhat short career. Ryan is the only one of the four without a crazy good winning percentage and a nice low ERA. Of course it's because Ryan allowed an absurdly low number of hits and relatively few home runs.. so the SLG against him more than made up for his stupid high walk totals, and the HBP. So from this I drew two conclusions: 1. Some wonder if Nolan was the greatest ever.. but I can say without question if he had even average control he unquestioningly would have been. And nobody would even be close. 2. There's still something I (or everyone) is missing. How are his ERA and losses so high? Can't just be walks.. those are rolled into the OPS stat. HBP, fielding, and pitcher hitting at the end of the day don't really make THAT much of a difference. His teams weren't great but they weren't generally speaking the worst in the league. I dunno.. but I do remember watching Ryan pitch and he would have like a 5 game stretch where he'd allow like two runs and 12 hits.. and go like 2-1 with 2 no decisions when he should have been 5-0 or 4-1.. a lot of 1--0 and 2-1 games.. then every 6th or 7th game or so he'd just get shellacked for 5 runs in the first inning and get knocked out. Maybe his tendency to sometimes have horrible outings plays into it.
Finally, after 100 comments or so: The next guy after me asks the burning Q, realizing the big fat elephant in the room: Why not using opposing OPS+? WHIP kinda suxx cos walks are less harmful than actual hits. It hurts "wild" pitchers more than it should. Further, SO are completely not calc´ed into it (a SO is better than a GO or FO even if considering DPs). Thus WHIP hurt "strikeout pitchers"... Anything that has ERA calc´ed into a formula is crap. ERA is an error itself. Right in the foundation, from the get go (funny side note: Dan Quisenbery is 13th all time in ERA+. Its a joke). WAR is beyond FUBAR. I wrote endless times about it. Even worse than ERA+. FIP is incomplete to the maximum. W-L is the worst of them all (see ya run support). So yes, opponent OPS+ is the best stat so far. But ZERO career lists are available. Ouch! Thus Ryan being so high on your list, surprises me. Now I held him even higher than I already did. May indeed he is the best ever.
I've made this argument about guys like Patrick Marleau, that their incredible longevity is a Hall of Fame candidacy in its own right because it indicates they were able to stay in the upper echelon of a highly competitive industry where most people don't make it beyond 3-5 years. Nolan Ryan has long been one of my favorite players just because he had such a unique game. At times he was downright untouchable; at times he'd give up runs without hits. He didn't peak as highly as some of his fellow pitchers, causing him to lose out on potential Cy Young awards, and he was mostly an October nonfactor. But the fact that he pitched as well as he did for as long as he did speaks volumes about the quality of his play relative to his peers, and I'd put him in the inner circle of pitchers with guys like Randy Johnson, Walter Johnson, Greg Maddux, Bob Gibson, Pedro Martinez, and Roger Clemens (who should be in the Hall despite his usage of PEDs for several reasons).
His last pitch (at age 46 and with a torn ligament in his arm) was clocked at 98mph…. At age 19, in 1966, he threw a combined 202 innings in A and AA. His combined record was 17-4, with ERA’s of 2.51/0.95 and 307K. I agree he was a unique human being, but comparatively today’s “aces” are a bunch of wimps. He also had 26 complete games in each of 2 MLB seasons, and 156 CG’s in 8 seasons with the Angels. By contrast, the fragile millionaires of today’s MLB managed 35 complete games TOTAL.
Nolan Ryan IS my favorite player ever. He belongs in the discussion for best ever. I think a lot of his walks weren't necessarily due to his wildness; sure, he didn't have the BEST command, but then again, there can only ever be one Greg Maddux. I think it was a combination of intimidation and waiting out the hard stuff. Ryanitis was a thing during his career and you can absolutely tell when a batter is inclined to swing or not. His fastball was the best the game had seen at the time ( I would LOVE to see the RPMs he gets on that fastball and curveball as they can provide in today's game) and his offspeed stuff just wasn't fair. But his offspeed stuff was RARELY thrown for a strike and i believe Ryan would rather walk someone than allow a hit. The greatest pitchers the game has seen get mad over HITS. not so much walks, not runs. HITS. Pedro, my pick for the greatest ever, would get MAD after allowing any hits. No pitcher likes to get beat. They can deal with beating themselves.
Respectfully; I think bonds struck fear into pitchers the same way Ryan struck fear into hitters. You can’t compare because one played every 5 days, the other played everyday. Not to take anything from Nolan bc he’s definitely one of the goats, but I think it would be fair to put Randy Johnson’s name where Bonds’ at makes it more comparable. Again, respectfully.
@@gabrielrockman Lmao i don’t give a fuck. Bob Gibson sure but Johnson did the entirety of his damage when entire races weren’t allowed to compete and teams featured dudes playing in the league as a second job to make ends meet His numbers get an asterisk Feller did his main damage pre integration and partial integration so again an asterisk from anyone with double digit brain cells
Bobby Hull was the most dominant hockey player I ever watched. He electrified the game whenever he stepped on the ice. If he had stayed in the NHL and had played in the 1972 Summit Series, he would today be recognized as the greatest offensive hockey player ever.
To be fair, many opponents went to the plate against Ryan looking for a walk. Also, batters that would have put the ball in play against other pitchers were swinging and missing against Ryan, therefore seeing more pitches until they would draw a walk.
I reckon today, he'd be either Al Albuquerque reliever with a short career or an all-time great pitcher due to the combo of unhittability and wildness.
So basically the Brett Favre of baseball. No doubt one of the greatest of all time. But context works against them. Great vid btw. New to baseball, lovin these videos.
Not even close. Favre had his consecutive stats and culmulative stats. But he never was top tier in efficiency. Most overrated QB ever. In the SB years, GB fielded number one defenses. And I havnt even talked about his playoff busts...
He was one of the most talented pitchers ever. His control was not amazing, but when he was on, he was unhittable. And I'm willing to bet a significant percentage of those hit by pitches were totally intentional. Plus, if you get hit by a Nolan Ryan fastball, you are probably gonna be leery at the plate the rest of the game. He may not be the best ever, but he is definitely in the conversation.
Fun Fact: Robin Ventura is from Santa Maria California and is one of the few pro athletes that have come from there! He has a very well know park named after him and he contributed a lot of money to his hometown community!
I think WAR breaks down when analyzing Nolan Ryan because of the intangibles. Two of those intangibles would be the hitters' approach to Ryan, and the fielders' approach. Hitters tried to avoid Ryan, and then tended to try to just make contact when they faced him. Fielders probably lost focus because the hitters rarely made contact.
Simple. Two types of pitchers: power and finesse. Ryan is the greatest power pitcher ever, and it’s not really close due to his ability to throw HEAT well into his 40’s when the few other pitchers that made it that long had turned into finesse pitchers. The numbers are crazy, particularly the complete games, SO, and inning pitched. Greatest finesse pitcher, Greg Maddox. Some of his numbers are insane, and he had a long career, too.
Glad someone noticed. It took a long time to chart and record all the songs in this video and led to some less than desirable copyright claims (why I ditched this format for my other videos).
I think what hurts him the most is his walks then the Era he pitched in. Innings pitched is a completely under valued stat today. He was a strikeout machine and still pitched 8 to 9 innings a game. Today's pitchers can barely make it through the 5th inning.
His ratio of strikeouts to walks is about 2-1. That's not bad, but it makes it darn near impossible to consider him the greatest ever, and his win-less percentage doesn't help. (I know wins and losses aren't everything, but when you're looking at who's the greatest, the percent counts for something.) He was great for a very long time, which puts him in a different category of greatness from the other candidates for GOAT.
The man won 300 games pitching for last place teams in 4 decades. Had he pitched for the Yankees, Dodgers, or Baltimore all those years, he may have won 350 games. Pitchers get killed in stats if their own team cannot win games or field...and he definitely played on such teams.
