If I were making a list I'm not sure Ryan is top 50. I'd have Gibson and Marichal in the 20s somewhere. We can start it off with Walter Johnson, Lefty Grove, Randy Johnson, Seaver, and Maddux. That's five right off the bat.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Clemens

Arrieta and Lester

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Pedro's gotta be near the top of the list.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm not going back before the 30s. I don't know how to evaluate that.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Babe Ruth and Kyle Schwarber

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/madison-bumgarner--wil-myers-get-mad--then-make-up-at-first-base-134234910.html

Pitchers answer to the bat flip and batters don't seem to like it.....tough shit

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Thank you ... ye gods.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Denton T

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

The point is, you start making a list, you'll see how quickly and easily you'll get 30 or 40 guys without even considering Ryan.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Babe Ruth actually was a really good pitcher. He probably still would have been in the HOF if he never hit a home run.

JoeOrr is correct about Ryan not being in the top 50. I mean there are guys like Bert Blyleven you could make a case for being better than Ryan.

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The romance of Nolan Ryan is that he's recorded as throwing the fastest pitch. A hard throwing strikeout pitcher, it's easy to see his appeal. As a yout, I too wanted to see Ryan pitch and he was a big part of the reason that I cared about knowing what the Angels were doing. Perhaps another aspect of his popularity is that he was Texas-born and spent his last 13 seasons pitching for Texas teams.

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DRINK BƎTTƎR. @theRIPH

This is a bunch of hot air. How about something like top WAR over a 12 year stretch?

Somebody use their brain and show me the top 50 with some objective criteria.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Now you're trying to argue that Ryan was better than Koufax and Dizzy Dean.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

_________________
Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

so what is your criteria? your "eyes?"

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Obviously not, since I never saw Koufax or Dean throw a pitch. But it isn't someting like WAR either where a person(s) subjectively give weight to various aspects of the game and roll them into a neat little number.

I'm not sure Ryan was ever even the best pitcher on his own team. Maybe once or twice in 27 seasons.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

clearly not true. first year I looked at 1973. 21 wins 2.87 ERA 326 IP for a dreadful Angels team.

war is not very subjective. essentially it is runs prevented compared to replacement level. throw in some minor park and defensive adjustments. its going to be pretty a pretty reasonable measure of that.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Ryan is 20th in WAR. BUT, the pre-1974 data is not complete. Longevity is a big component of this, if I've got my saber stats down correctly.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leade ... reer.shtml

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Pre 1974 WAR is approximate since the PBP may be missing for some games. effects baserunning mostly I guess. but that's not going to make a 7.5 WAR into 2.5 WAR

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I really don't care where Ryan lands. I didn't see enough of most of the historical greats to have an opinion. Plus I rarely watched AL baseball, so I missed many of the guys like Pedro in their prime. So I have no "eye test" to judge those guys.

Today you get to see all of it with the MLB channel and so many easily accessible video clips. You could watch MLB Network for a few hours each night, and you would see every notable play. In the old days, I was reading box scores and studying the backs of baseball cards. PLUS, Fantasy Baseball is great for keeping up with out of market teams.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

numbers are better than eyes especially if you have a whole bunch of them. numbers that is, not eyes.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Yes, I agree. Numbers tend to tell the story especially if you have a large set of data that is statistically significant. I usually let data drive my decision making.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Pedro had a higher career WAR with 9 less seasons.

Pedro might be the best pitcher ever, so not really surprising.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

It's really tough to look at Ryan's W/L % as a gauge of his effectiveness. In 1987 he led the league in ERA, Strikeouts, and Strikeout to walk ratio, and still ended up with an 8-16 record.

As for his career WHIP of 1.247, it's the exact same as Steve Carlton's. Ryan had way more walks than anybody, but he also allowed fewer hits than anybody (per inning), so it kind of evens out.

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For some reason I just felt like quoting this and bolding that particular sentence.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

if I cared enough I'd compile the records of his teams played on. also wonder what kind of a pitcher he'd be on a 120 pitch limit. 4 inning? maybe he'd change his style. I dunno. Ask pedro to go 325 innings and see what happens.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest