Fellas, I need some help here. One of my friends was arguing that Ryan was the greatest pitcher ever. I laughed in his face. He pointed to Ryan's strikeouts, no-hitters, and a couple other things. But, I know that there are a couple handful of pitchers that could be considered better. I thought back to when I saw a thread in here regarding this issue. I have been searching through pages of threads, but cant seem to find it. If anyone can find that thread, then I'd appreciate a link to it. Otherwise, you can go ahead and give me reasons that Ryan shouldnt even be close to the top. I need all the ammunition I can get when I shoot down the Ryan express. Thanks.
I happen to think he is one of the top 10 all time pitchers. It would be hard to call him the best due to his close to .500 record and the fact that he is the all time leader in walks. Granted you can attribute his .500 record to the teams he played for....and the walks to his longevity (which is one of the things that made him so good). I think guys like Cy Young , Koufax, Gibson and even Clemens will be considered as better pitchers over the course of their careers.
Pitchers who I believe were better than Nolan Ryan [in no particular order] Cy Young Walter Johnson Sandy Koufax Steve Carlton Christy Matthewson Lefty Grove Tom Seaver Warren Spahn Roger Clemens There's some others I could put above Ryan as well,but don't know enough about them [Grover Alexander,Tim Keefe,Eddie Plank?? ]. I also believe that Randy Johnson will end up in that list as well. I tend to downgrade Ryan myself due to his average winning percentage and his perceived lack of "clutchness". I don't have the book anymore [I believe it was a Bill James book from the early 90's],but it showed that Ryan actually underperformed some of the "medicre " teams he was a part of,and that his medoicre record should'nt be attributed to the lackluster teams he played for.
Didn't Cy Young play in an era when the pitching rubber was a good ten feet closer to the plate than it is now? If you moved the mound ten feet closer for all teams, you'd see a lot of pitchers putting up Young-esque numbers. You only get a fraction of a second to see and hit the pitch already. Try moving the mound closer and lessening the time even more. Baseball is more hospitable to pitchers. That's why a .300 batting average is considered "good". That's a success only 3 out of 10 times. How is that "good"? It's because it is so hard to hit Major League pitching. I'm sorry if any of the above was repetitive or nonsensical. I've been at a debate tournament all day long, and all day yesterday, with only 4 hours sleep between them, and I'm practically falling over. I love this BBS.
I think if you are going to compile such a list, you would need to compile it in such a manner that separates players in certain eras. It's worthless to have a list that has players such as Matthewson and Clemens one in the same, because there is no substance to validate a comparison.
Really? I never knew that. If that's true I can't see how anyone would think those older guys were so much better, especially with today's pitchers being 10 feet further back.
Satchel Paige was a name I was thinking should be thrown in as well. It's hard to measure acheivements from different eras. It's best off really just to say Ryan was one of the best of his time.
Yea but it's not neccessarily a player striking out 7 out of 10 times. He can fly out, ground out, etc. He can hit it but it doesn't always translate to bases. A .300 batting average has to deal with a little bit more with the hitter and not the pitcher he's facing.
You're right, the hitter can fly out, ground out, etc. However, we have pitchers who are described as "fly out" pitchers or "ground out" pitchers. Pitchers who are skilled at inducing these outs. Baseball is a pitcher's game.
One way to look at it is would you want Ryan on the mound for game 7? I can name quite a few pitchers I would rather have out there including Clemens.
I hear you man. I used this same argument a while back. I bet most of the people on this BBS havent seen the majority of those pitchers. I would expand on that argument but I broke my finger this morning lifting weights and it is very hard to type.
It has been 60ft-6inches since 1893. Only the first year or two of CY's career were under the old rules. Any advantage he might have had from the early rules are easily countered by the fact that for the majority of his career he was throwing off of flat ground, instead of raised on a mound. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3026
you'd think that...but it didn't work out real well for the 'stros in the playoffs. if i remember right, he pitched game 2 against the mets in 86 and got beat.
