Posted By:
CyPeople always complain that Ryan was on losing teams and that's why he had a poor record. That
may be. But to measure his greatness, compare how good he was compared to how good his
team was. I checked Ryan's Win/Lost pct. compared to the Win/Lost pct. of his teams. I also did
the same for Greg Maddux for comparison. I picked Maddux before I knew his stats because he
may be THE most under-rated pitcher of All-Time.
I also ignored Ryan's first four years in which he wasn't too good and the Mets were good. It
didn't seem fair to blame him for his early goings. I also ignored the first two years of Greg
Maddux for the same reason. Here is what I found out.
Teams W 1766 L 1739 Pct. .504
Ryan W 295 L 254 Pct. .537 +.033
Teams W 1354 L 1006 Pct. .574
Maddux W 265 L 134 Pct. .664 +.090
Nolan Ryan was only 3.3% better than his teams. Read that again. He was only 3.3% better than
his teams. Would you want your ace, your Hall of Famer to be only 3.3% better than the rest of
the staff? On the other hand, Maddux was 9% better than his teams. To me, this is huge. This
shows that Ryan truly wasn't that impressive compared to the teams he played for.
To his credit, Ryan did pitch a long time and that in itself is an achievement to be good enough
to last that long. But I wouldn't rank him up there with the top pitchers of All Time.
Getting back to Maddux, any time we talk baseball, we comment on how juiced up the ball is
and how easy it is to hit the ball out of the park, and anywhere for that matter.
If we truly believe that, the we must argue that Greg Maddux could be the best pitcher of All
Time. Yes, I am actually stated that as a possibility. He was untouchable for over a decade when
the ball was juiced way beyond anything that happened previously. I am not going to say he was
the best, definitely. (I truly don't believe that.) But I do feel he is definitely in the top 10 and he
IS the most under-rated pitcher of All Time.
I don't believe we can have it both ways. If this is indeed the best time by far for hitters, then if a pitcher is unhittable, then he deserves to be placed right up there with Johnson, Matty, Koufax and Gibson.
Cy