Is Nolan Ryan a top ten pitcher of all-time?
This was something that was brought up on Twitter recently. The original poster said that in his opinion, Ryan is not one of the top ten best pitchers. Now, obviously any list like this will be extremely subjective. So many factors for trying to even come up with this list.
Off the top of my head though, my list looked like this:
Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens, Tom Seaver, Pedro Martinez, Cy Young, Clayton Kershaw, and Nolan Ryan
That was like five seconds and those are the names I came up with. I think if I put more thought into it, I would probably come up with a different list, but it is hard to leave off the strikeout king.
Now I know what some people would say. “Well he pitched for 27 seasons, of course he racked up strikeouts.” And that is true, but you have to respect the longevity. But okay, what if he only pitched for 12 seasons, say from 1972-1983 (his best 12 years). What would that look like?
3184 strikeouts. Where would that put him all-time? He would be 13th, just ahead of Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer, who have pitched longer than twelve seasons.
The funny thing is that back when I was a kid, I did not think he was that great. The no-hitters were cool, but I just thought if he was that great, he should have more wins. Also, the walks are definitely a knock against him. But you know who else had a ton of walks? Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson, Roger Clemens…yeah, big strikeout pitchers have can also walk some guys. And as we know, wins are pretty useless (just ask Jacob deGrom). So maybe my younger self judged the guy harshly.
I think one of the things that stands out to me though is that he was striking guys out back in the days when players did not strike out 180+ times per year. Seriously, in 1979 the hitter with the tenth most strikeouts struck out 106 times. In 2021, 106 Ks would rank you 42nd amongst qualified hitters for the least amount of strikeouts.
Crazy Nolan Ryan stats:
-He struck out 47 Hall of Fame hitters
-He pitched against guys like Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, as well Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. The players my dad and grandfather loved to the guys I grew up watching. Hell, he even struck out my favorite player: Andy Van Slyke!
-He struck out Tony Gwynn, who only had 434 career strikeouts!
-He threw 235 pitches in a game once. June 14, 1974 against the Red Sox. Granted this was before pitch counts were recorded, so we have to go off his pitching coach, but he pitched 13 innings, struck out 19 batters, walked 10! So at a minimum he had 97 pitches just from those. Fun fact…Luis Tiant, his mound opponent, threw 14.1 innings. A totally different era.
-Here is a weird one, he had 198 non-win quality starts. In those starts he had a 2.27 ERA, 1.166 WHIP, and a 9.77 K/9. Pretty crazy.
-At age 40 he led the NL in strikeouts, ERA, FIP, while posting a 1.14 WHIP. The Astros only scored zero or one run in a quarter of his starts, he went 8-16 that year.
Look, I have no clue if Nolan Ryan is one of the top ten best pitchers of all-time. He does have the most strikeouts and career no-hitters. Yeah, he played in a different era and that makes it so difficult to compare. Yeah, I know WAR does it’s best, but it is not perfect. According to B-Ref, Nolan Ryan is 20th in career WAR for pitchers. So I think you can make an argument for or against him being in the top ten. I guess it just depends on how much you value a guy who can strikeout just about anyone.
