re: How do y'all rate Nolan Ryan as a pitcher?

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For some inexplicable reason, his aura, the vibe he gave off to his teammates wasn't conducive to "winning games." My theory is his aura made everyone tight.

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Wtf is this fig shite?

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Lost a lot of games.

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Wins/losses are the dumbest stat for pitchers by FAR. A shite team that can't score runs is not the pitcher's fault and he played for a lot of really shite teams.

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Nolan Ryan had 198 career non-win quality starts. He was 0-107 with a 2.27 ERA, 1.166 WHIP, & 9.77 K/9 in those starts

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wow


his aura must be slippin

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Here's an interesting stat that may clear things up on his career W/L record.

Nolan Ryan had 198 career non-win quality starts. He was 0-107 with a 2.27 ERA, 1.166 WHIP, & 9.77 K/9 in those starts

For the counter to this; he had 35 wins off non-quality starts for his career.

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Great stats. Nice job. But they don't clear things up; those stats are actually so stark and anomalous they're a tell that something odd was afoot. It may seem to support my assertion.

Some players -- athletes considered "great" of ANY pro sport -- do give off good and bad vibes that affect locker rooms. A-Rod for one (bad). Catfish Hunter (good). It is the reason why coaches and managers at times will carry less skilled players that seem to make no sense statistically. TEAMS feel and feed off a pitcher or key player's energy -- good and bad.

Back to Ryan.

That no-win stat -- 0-107 with a 2.27 ERA -- THAT kind of humongous sample size of ND's and L's, makes no sense at all. Unless there is something to the "vibe", "aura" thing -- in the negative. And then it's a pattern.

Whatever Ryan's locker room - game time aura was, it somehow, some way created a tightness, lack of relaxation, focus and energy for hitters on his teams. (and fwiw, I've pitched and played ball at high levels , having recognized this phenomena personally firsthand as well.) Is there any scientific metric to support my theory? Of course not.

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He was the all time king of no run support. He and Felix Hernandez can share that distinction.

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Yup. Another dominant pitcher who for some reason also oddly lacked run support.

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That no-win stat -- 0-107 with a 2.27 ERA -- THAT kind of humongous sample size of ND's and L's, makes no sense at all. Unless there is something to the "vibe", "aura" thing -- in the negative. And then it's a pattern.

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Not following your New Age Aura "WAR" but now do Barry Bonds...pretty sure he'd be on your list of worst baseball player for team achievements...considering ya know, his teammates hated him all the way back to Arizona State and he had his own clubhouse within the Clubhouse so he could chill away from the peons/teammates.

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For some inexplicable reason, his aura, the vibe he gave off to his teammates wasn't conducive to "winning games." My theory is his aura made everyone tight.

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Tight my arse. I think it made them relaxed when Nolan pitched. I'm sure the hitters thought all the pressure was off because "Nolan's pitching so all we gotta do is score a run or two to win". I think that's way more viable than that dribble you wrote.

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For some inexplicable reason, his aura, the vibe he gave off to his teammates wasn't conducive to "winning games." My theory is his aura made everyone tight.

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So this is your theory? Nothing based on what his teammates have said…?

The most unique and entertaining and arguably the toughest pitcher in the history of MLB and a no-brainer first-ballot Hall of Famer. But nowhere close to the GOAT and rated higher by fans than baseball historians because fans get off on toughness and get off on speed. Although his curveball was hellacious too.

As far as why he didn’t win as much as “he should have,” it’s not as a lot of fans believe because he pitched for bad teams, the only streak of bad teams he really pitched for were the 1972-77 Angels. The teams he pitched for during his career were over .500 and the teams he pitched for from 1978, when the Angels got good, until the end of his career were well over .500.

A baseball writer named Joe Posnaski pretty much encapsulated it in his chapter on Ryan in his book on the 100 greatest players (Ryan was on the list).

Nolan Ryan started every game he started in his life intending to strike out 27 batters. If he didn’t strike out the first guy, he then intended to strike out the next 26 batters, and so forth.

He didn’t care about holding runners on base. He didn’t care about the defense behind him being involved in the game. He didn’t care about fielding his position. To him, the game was a mano y mano confrontation between him and the batter, full stop.

And he would never, ever, ever, EVER give in to a batter, even if as a strategic move it would be in the best interests of his team as far as winning the game, which is supposed to be the reason players are out there.

That attitude is the reason fans love him. It’s one of the reasons he was Nolan Ryan. But some folks believe it’s a big reason his W/L wasn’t as good as it should be.

Something else to consider: I ran the numbers and in the 1980s there were years when the Astros scored more than a run per game more for Mike Scott and Joe Niekro than they did for Ryan. Was that just blind, bad luck? I’m sure it wasn’t because they didn’t want to score runs for him. Could it have been because it’s difficult to get in gear to go on offense when you’ve been standing around in the field twiddling your thumbs because your pitcher throws 200 pitches and goes to 3-2 on every batter because he wants to strike them all out instead of just getting them out?

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Struck a lot of people. Pitched for a long time. Lost a lot of games. Was never the best pitcher in baseball. Had a single sub 2 ERA season in 27 years. Had a middling K/BB ratio. I think his perception is outsized. He’s clearly below pitchers like Kershaw.

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There’s some truth to this although I think you are understating how good he was.

At his best he was untouchable.

Put him in better franchises and he’s a top 10 all time pitcher.