The Definitive End To The Revisionist History Inflating The Value Of Athletes

There are countless baseball fans who have watched documentaries on Nolan Ryan, seen him pitch and have concluded that Ryan is if not the greatest pitcher of all time, then amongst the very best of the best. This could not be further from the truth. Since his retirement from baseball, the legend of Nolan Ryan has grown into mythical proportions. Some of those myths are as follows:

Myth 1: He played mostly on bad teams which effected his win/loss totals.
Myth 2: He deserved to win multiple Cy Young Awards.
Myth 3: He was the most dominant pitcher of all time.

I will dispel these myths in order using nothing but verifiable statistical evidence that is readily available online to anyone. I will not use any anecdotal evidence, nor will my personal opinions on this player or any other player come into consideration.

Myth 1: He mostly played on bad teams which effected his win/loss totals.

This is the easiest myth to dispel. Not only did Nolan Ryan not play on “mostly bad teams”, he rarely played on a bad team. Nolan Ryan pitched 26 full seasons and in those 26 full seasons he pitched for a team that finished the season with a losing record in 11 of those seasons, which means that in the other 15 years, he was on a winning team. That doesn’t really tell the whole story though, you need to look at how those teams fared in games that Nolan Ryan pitched, and how they did in games where he did not pitch. Looking at every team that he played on from 1968-1993 and removing his starts from those games we will examine the team records without Ryan factoring into the game in any way on the field.

TEAM / OVERALL RECORD / RECORD WHEN RYAN PITCHED / RECORD WHEN HE DIDN’T PITCH

NEW YORK METS YEARS
1968 Mets 73-89 overall, they were 8-13 w/Ryan .381, they were 65-76 w/o Ryan .480
1969 Mets 100-62 overall, they were 13-12 w/Ryan, 87-50 w/o Ryan pitching .635
1970 Mets 83-79 / 9-18, .333 / 74-64 .548
1971 Mets 83-79 / 11-19 .367 / 72-60 .545

During his time in New York, the Mets were better off when Nolan Ryan didn’t pitch. During his time on the team, 1968 was their only losing season. That team had a .461 winning percentage which is bad, but it is hardly a terrible team as it is the equivalent of a team that finishes with 75 wins over a full season.

CALIFORNIA ANGELS YEARS
1972 Angels 75-80 / 22-17 .564 / 53-63 .457
1973 Angels 79-83 / 22-19 .537 / 57-64 .471
1974 Angels 68-94 / 25-17 .595 / 43-77 .358
1975 Angels 72-89 / 16-12 .571 / 56-77 .421
1976 Angels 76-86 / 18-21 .462 / 58-65 .472
1977 Angels 74-88 / 21-16 .568 / 53-72 .424
1978 Angels 87-75 / 16-15 .516 / 71-60 .542
1979 Angels 88-74 / 18-16 .529 / 70-58 .547

During his stint in California, Nolan played on arguably the worst teams of his career, but how bad were they really? Taking out Nolan Ryans games, the 1972 Angels had a .457 winning percentage without Nolan which would have been a 74-win team over a full season, not a good team but not a terrible team either. Excluding Ryan, the1973 and 1975 teams both would have finished with 76 wins again not great teams but not terrible either. 74,75, and 77 were really the only three terrible teams that Nolan Ryan ever played for. They were 58-, 68-, and 69-win teams respectively. The funny thing about Ryan’s tenure with the Angels is that in 1978 and 1979 the team got good. So good that they actually had a LOWER winning percentage on the nights that Nolan pitched. Based off their winning percentage during games that Ryan did not appear, both the 78 and 79 Angels could have finished the season with 1 extra win had Nolan Ryan never appeared for their team in those seasons.

HOUSTON ASTROS YEARS

The Astros portion of Nolan Ryans career is clearly when he was on the best teams. If you removed his games from the 80-88 Astros, they had 6 out of 9 teams that would have been winning teams had Nolan Ryan not pitched for them. The 3 losing teams that they would have had without Ryan would have won 76, 79, and 80 games respectively. No logical argument could be made that those were terrible teams. An interesting twist to the end of Ryan’s career as an Astro is that the team would have been significantly better if he weren’t around in those final two years. In 1987 in games that Nolan Ryan started the Astros were 10 games under .500, they were a .500 team in all other games that season. In 1988 the Astros finished 3 games over .500 in games that Ryan didn’t pitch, but 1 game under when he did.

The Rangers were always right around the middle of the pack when Ryan was on the team. They never had a great team, and they never had a bad team. 4 of the 5 years the team had winning records the only losing Ranger team he played for was in 1992 when the Rangers were 77-85, incidentally if Nolan never pitched for them in 1992 their winning percentage would have been .489 which would have been good for a 79-83 record (two games better).

In summation, in his 26 full seasons in the Major Leagues, Nolan Ryan played on exactly THREE terrible teams. He played for 15 winning teams. Over his career his team’s winning percentage in games that he started was .522. Over his career his team’s winning percentage in games that he didn’t play was .503. Over his career Nolan Ryans team was 1.845% more likely to win a game that he started than if he didn’t pitch. It wasn’t that his teams were bad, it was that he was an incredibly inconsistent pitcher, which leads us to:

MYTH 2: Nolan Ryan Deserved to Win Multiple Cy Young Awards

In his illustrious 27-year career, Nolan Ryan set the MLB record for strikeouts with 5714, hits/9 at 6.6, pitched 5386 innings, and won 324 games. What he never did was win a Cy Young Award. Of his 26 full seasons he received Cy Young votes in 8 of them. Let’s examine those seasons to see if he should have been given the award or if the voters got it right.

1972 finished in 8th place
1973 finished in 2nd place
1974 finished in 3rd place
1977 finished in 3rd place
1981 finished in 4th place
1983 finished in 9th place
1987 finished in 5th place
1989 finished in 5th place

In 1972 Gaylord Perry won the award, he had 5 more wins, an equal number of losses, Perry’s ERA was 1.92 compared to Ryans 2.28, Perry had 29 complete games to Ryans 20, Ryan struck out 95 more batters than Perry but he also walked 75 more batters than Gaylord did. Perry had a 168 ERA+ which was 40% better than Nolan Ryans ERA + of 128. Ryan should not have finished higher in the voting than Gaylord Perry in 1972.

In 1973 Nolan Ryan finished second to Jim Palmer in the Cy Young Award. Both had outstanding years, Palmer finished 22-9 with a 2.40 ERA, Ryan finished 21-16 with a 2.87 ERA. Palmer had 19 CG and 6 SHO, Ryan had 26 CG with 4 SHO. Ryan struck out 225 more batters than Palmer, but he also walked 49 more hitters. The true separator in this season was ERA+ again. Palmer was 155 whereas Ryan was only 123. With his 1 more win, 7 fewer losses, half run better ERA and 32% advantage in ERA+, Palmer was clearly the better choice this season.

in 1974 Ryan finished 3rd behind Catfish Hunter and Fergie Jenkins. Again, all of the numbers except strikeouts favor Hunter. Hunter had 25 wins to 12 losses, a 2.49 ERA, 23 CG with 6 of them being shutouts, a 0.986 WHIP and an ERA+ of 134. Ryan was 22-16 with a 2.89 ERA, 26 CG, 3 SHO, he struck out 224 more batters than Hunter, but he also walked a whopping 156 more hitters. That isn’t a typo, he walked ONE HUNDRED FIFTY-SIX more batters than Catfish Hunter that season. Ryan also had a WHIP of 1.272 and an ERA+ of 118. Hunter deserved the award over Nolan Ryan.

1977 saw Nolan finish third to reliever Sparky Lyle and Jim Palmer. It is difficult to argue the merits of a closer over a starter as it can be much more subjective, but fortunately Jim Palmer also finished ahead of Nolan Ryan so we can compare the two of them. Palmer was 20-11 with a 2.91 ERA in 319 innings pitched with 22 CG and 3 SHO, he had a 1.135 WHIP and an ERA+ of 131. Meanwhile Nolan had a 19-16 record with a 2.77 ERA in 299 IP with 22 CG and 4 SHO, he struck out 148 more men than Palmer did, but he also walked 105 more guys than Palmer. He had a WHIP of 1.344 and an ERA+141. This is extremely close with Palmer getting an extra win with 5 fewer losses and he pitched 20 more innings. Ryan did have a 10% higher ERA+. This one is almost too close to call between the second and third place finishers. However, the first-place finisher was 13-5 in 137 innings of relief, he finished 60 games saving 26 of them. He had an ERA of 2.17, a WHIP of 1.197 and an amazing ERA+ of 183. If we are going to use the ERA+ to put Ryan over Palmer in 1977, then we must look at it when you compare Sparky Lyle to Nolan as well.

The strike shortened 1981 season was probably Nolan Ryan’s best year and therefore best chance for a Cy Young win. He finished the season 11-5 with a 1.69 ERA, 5 CG with 3 shutouts, 140 K’s, 1.121 WHIP, and an amazing ERA+ of 195 in 149 IP over 21 starts. Meanwhile rookie pitcher Fernando Valenzuela burst onto the scene in 1981 with a 13-7 record, 2.48 ERA, 11 CG with 8 of them shutouts, he struck out 180 men, had a WHIP of 1.045, but his ERA+ was only 135. Fernando led the league in Starts at 25, IP at 192.1, CG 11, SHO 8, K’s 180. It is hard to vote against those numbers especially when both Tom Seaver and Steve Carlton arguably had just as good if not better years than Nolan Ryan.

Nolan’s 9th place finish in 1983 was deserved he was never a serious threat for the Cy Young that season with a record of 14-9 with a 2.98 ERA 1.197 WHIP and an ERA+ only 14% better than league average. Meanwhile the winner John Denny was 19-6 with a 2.37 ERA over nearly 50 more innings pitched and had an ERA+ of 152.

Nolan Ryan finished 5th in 1987, he led the league in ERA at 2.76, Ks with 270, and an ERA+ of 142. Unfortunately for Nolan his record was 8-16 and in his 34 starts he pitched fewer than 7 innings 20 times. Meanwhile the eventual winner of the award Steve Bedrosian appeared in 65 games finishing 56 of them with 40 saves, had a 2.83 ERA in 89IP his ERA+ was 151 (did not qualify for league leaders due to innings pitched). An argument can be made that Ryan was the best pitcher in the National League in 1987, but the 8-16 record surely kept him from winning the award.

Finally in 1989 Nolan Ryan received his last Cy Young votes. He finished 5thto Bret Saberhagen and the contest wasn’t even close. Saberhagen was the easy winner receiving 27 of 28 first place votes behind a stellar season in which he was 23-6 with an ERA of 2.16, an 0.961 WHIP and an ERA+ of 180. Saberhagen was the right call here and there really wasn’t anyone close.

So, of the eight seasons that Nolan Ryan received Cy Young Award votes, an argument can only be made for one of them. He probably was the best pitcher in 1987, but at the time there were no advanced stats to tell us how good he really was that year. Many voters had to rely on things like wins and losses and to have only 8 wins against 16 losses it is very hard to say that guy had a better season than Steve Bedrosian or Orel Hershiser for that matter. Either way, at best we could argue that Nolan Ryan could have possibly maybe won one Cy Young, there is no argument that he deserved multiple Cy Youngs.

MYTH 3: Nolan Ryan Was the Most Dominant Pitcher of All Time

Nostalgia tends to make our favorite players better in our minds than what they really were in real life. There is no pitcher that this is truer for than Nolan Ryan. Yes, it is true that Nolan Ryan was a first ballot Hall of Famer, and frankly he should have been a unanimous choice, but he only received 98.79% of the vote. Ryan is the all-time leader in strikeouts with 5714 and hits per nine innings having allowed only 6.555 hits per nine. Nolan Ryan also has 7 no hitters, 12 one hitters, and 17 two hitters. All of those are incredible feats and, on the surface, they make it seem like he may have been the most dominant pitcher of all time. If you dig a little deeper into the numbers, you will see that those numbers amount to nothing more than fool’s gold. When you look at those games you are looking at 36 games out of 807. What you are missing is the 358 games that he walked 4 or more batters, including 71 games that he walked SEVEN of more batters. You would also be missing the fact that in the 483 games that he got a loss or had a no decision, he had an ERA of 4.81.

The fact of the matter is that if Nolan Ryan starts a game, 36% of the time he is going to lose that game; 24% of the time he is going to get a no decision, and in 40% of the games he starts he will get the win. To take the point even further the team record in games that Nolan Ryan pitched in was 420-387 which is a .520 winning percentage. That also means that he has a .480 losing percentage. How can anyone be considered the most dominant pitcher of all time when his team loses 48% of the games that he pitches in?

Nolan Ryan’s career can be divided into thirds (wins, no decisions, losses). In wins, Nolan Ryan was absolutely the most dominant pitcher who ever lived in a third of the games that he pitched in. That is evidenced by his tOPS+ in wins (for pitchers, tOPS+ or Total OPS+ a metric to determine how well opposing hitters did against a pitcher. 100 being the baseline number, any number below 100 for a pitcher indicates how much better the pitcher was compared to the average pitcher, any number over 100 indicates how much worse the pitcher was compared to the average pitcher). In wins Nolan Ryan had a tOPS+ of 58 for his career, this is an incredibly great number that would have made him easily the greatest pitcher of all time if we were only looking at games won.

Unfortunately, we cannot only look at the 324 games he won, we also must look at the other 483 games that resulted in a no decisions or a loss. In no decisions, Nolan was not nearly as dominant as he was in wins. In ND games, Ryan had a career tOPS+ of 114, making him 14% worse than the average pitcher. For his career in no decisions, he had a 3.44 ERA with a 1.322 WHIP. In his 292 losses Nolan Ryan was one of the worst pitchers in baseball. He had a tOPS+ of 148 in losses, meaning he was 48% worse than the league average pitcher in games he lost. His career ERA in losses was a brutal 5.60, and he had a career WHIP of 1.586 in his losses. He was nothing less than terrible when he didn’t win, which was much of the time.

Nolan Ryan is not the most dominant pitcher of all time, and he certainly isn’t the best pitcher of all time. He is not in the top 25 pitchers to ever throw a major league pitch. His career ERA+ of 112 (12% better than league average) would rank him 70th among pitchers who were predominantly starters with a minimum of 1000 innings pitched in the past 100 years (106th all time). His career 3.19 ERA ranks him 60th all time. His career 1.247 WHIP puts him 106th all-time in that category. His 2.05 Strikeout to Walk Ration is the 129th best. His 2795 walks are the most ever, the second most has 962 fewer walks than Nolan Ryan. To put that into perspective, in the history of baseball, there have only been 129 pitchers that have walked 962 or more batters in their entire careers, and that is the number of more walks that Nolan Ryan had than second place Steve Carlton.

Thirty years have passed since Ryan last threw a major league pitch. We watch documentaries and we listen to our parents and grandparents, and we want to believe that the man that has become this legendary character was a great as we imagine that he was, but the numbers just do not support it.