No pitcher controls how many runs his own team scores which is half the determinant of a win or a loss. He can only control how many he gives up. Ryan's ERA was essentially the same as Carlton's.

I'm a huge HH fan and his Collins McCarthy is one of my whales. Good luck finding his Zeenut in decent condition at a sane price.

Feller won 4 more games for 1946 Indians than Ryan did for the 74 Angels. I wouldn't say somehow because he won four more games. I think you're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

Ryan averaged 232 innings a year over 27 seasons and threw in the upper 90s to 100 the entire time. He was a freak. His hobby status is deserved.

Ohtani can thank Lefty for planting the seeds of Japanese baseball

I think Nolan Ryan's cards are valued relatively highly compared to his actual value to his team, but that doesn't make him overvalued. Ryan wasn't a great pitcher - .526 winning %, 112 ERA+ - but he was historic. He threw 7 no-hitters, struck out 5714 batters, had the lowest career H/9 of all-time, and pitched for 27 seasons - I don't understand why you wouldn't understand why he is valued specially.

Hobby value isn't based on baseball value but how a player is perceived. You could argue that Don Sutton was as good - the same number of wins, 36 fewer losses, 108 ERA+ - but he's not valued by collectors anywhere near Ryan, and why would he be? There has never been and may never be another pitcher like Ryan.

I'm not the world's biggest Ryan fan, and I don't think he was as good as Seaver or Carlton or maybe even Palmer in that era, but to me it's just wrong to say he was not a great pitcher. He was a great pitcher.

I think I said more than I meant to when I said Ryan wasn't a great pitcher - he was great. But there were other great pitchers with similar value - Mussina, say, or Jenkins - whose cardboard is not valued similarly. That's all I meant to say, at least.

I would agree Fergie isn't that popular in the hobby. Neither is Palmer. Or Carlton, really. Hard to compare Mussina from the era of massive overproduction and scads of mainstream sets every year.

Warren Spahn, Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Niekro are three extreme finesse guys who serve as counterexamples.

;)

Even Dizzy Dean? And speaking of Dizzy, are his cards overpriced or underpriced?

:confused:

How about Jackie Robinson? Aren't his cards quite pricey compared to even those of Yogi Berra, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron?

:confused:

I feel they are overpriced, too. To me, it has everything to do with Jackie as a figurehead for Civil Rights vs. his actual performance. He appeals to today's woke mentality, too, so prices just keep rising. (Boy, do I hate the term "woke". I shuddered when typing it.)

Tim,

First off, I'd politely like to take the superhuman Walter Johnson out of what I say below.

The other pitchers you used for comparison in your last post all actually had good/great teams helping them secure higher winning percentages quite often in their careers. Ryan couldn't be expected to win all the games on his own with absolutely no aid from some disgustingly terrible teams. Aside from 1969, which was so early on for him, when did he ever have any support? His W-L totals are not solely his doing. Not to mention that he was barely used in 1969; less than 90 IP.

Every collection needs a Jackie ...

I don't think the "woke mentality" is terribly prevalent in this segment of the hobby dominated by older white men. I do think the collective respect for U.S. history elevates his status significantly, no question.

I picked up my first this year thanks to another member -- it's just a beautiful piece.

There are lots of new collectors who are younger. Yes, most may be into modern material, but if they make the jump into vintage, as some have and more will continue to do, they will undoubtedly be drawn to Jackie, thereby keeping the values rising. That's who I was referring to.

I would think you would want future generations to be drawn to someone like Jackie Robinson.

I think people underestimate Robinson as a player.

No, he was not on the Hornsby, Collins, Lajoie, Morgan, Gehringer level but a lot of that is due to having a shorter career. His 162 game average is 16 HR, 23 SB, 111 runs, 87 RBIs with a .313/.410/.477 slash which translates to an .887 OPS and 133 OPS+.

And he his third (after Hornsby and Ross Barnes) in WAR/162 for second basemen. ROY, MVP, 7-time all star (in 10 MLB seasons). No Gold Gloves were awarded while he played but I am not aware of him being regarded as a defensive liability. And I don't know how to measure intangibles (hustle, leadership, distracting the pitcher, etc.), but if anyone had them, he did.

He was 28 years old as a rookie. His averages would be so much better if he started as a 20 year old like many others. No point of comparing him to anyone as far as numbers go. He would be in that group easily if he had a full career like they did. I know you acknowledged his short career but take his late start and the abuse he endured and I'll easily put him on their level.

My underrated player that is either forgotten or nobody has heard of to begin with is Addie Joss.

Deadball era pitcher, died at age 31 from tubercular meningitis before the 1911 season began. Cleveland Naps, along with Lajoie, Elmer Flick and Cy Young, for a time. Joss's first MLB start was a one-hit shutout in 1902, and then in 1908 he pitched the 2nd perfect game of the modern era against the White Sox. He pitched another no-hitter in 1910. 160-97 on his career, 45 of those wins were shutouts. Won 20 games or more 4x. 2nd lowest career ERA (behind Ed Walsh) at 1.89 - and his career WHIP - the measure of how difficult a pitcher is to get on base off of - is the lowest of all-time at 0.968. (There are only three pitchers all-time with more than 1k innings with a career WHIP under 1 - Joss, Ed Walsh, and Jacob deGrom...) In this respect compared to Nolan Ryan - famously in addition to the no-no's and K's - the most difficult pitcher to get a base hit off of percentage-wise - Ryan's career WHIP is not in the top 300 all-time. When I see fanatic Facebook posts about how Nolan Ryan is apparently the greatest pitcher of all time - I sometimes ask people if they've ever heard of Addie Joss...

You read in multiple places where Joss was comparable to Mathewson or Johnson, he just gets forgotten because he died so young.

I don't know, obviously I wasn't around 120 years ago - but I like the story and the idea of Joss as kind of this mythical, obscure HOF'er. He's got both a portrait and a pitching pose T206, and then what must be the first ever "In Memorium" card that was issued after he died in the T205 set.

Well, my point was that he was underestimated as a player...and I guess I did the same thing!

Why "deserved"? I don't get it
 

I would agree, if his "hobby status" were anywhere on par with pitchers of his overall caliber like Sutton and Blyleven, whose numbers are very similar in WL PCT, ERA, durability, and even shutouts - (Nolan 61, Bert 60, Don 58) -

I wouldn't even kick if it was on par with guys from that era who were clearly greater overall than he was, like Gibson, Seaver, and Carlton.

But the point is that the value of his cards is nowhere near those other guys - it far outdistances them.

So, it is what it is - we're in a wacky hobby, and that's part of why it's fun. But don't expect me to agree that it's deserved in the face of the numbers.

PS: Don't you think it means something that of all the starting pitchers in the HOF (who are in because of pitching as opposed to other contributions), Ryan would have the absolute worst winning percentage (.526) if not for good old Eppa Rixey (.515)?

Team WL PCT as a factor
 

But were Ryan's teams really THAT much worse than those of others? We're talking about a 20+ plus year stretch, after all. There were some good ones in there too - and Seaver, Carlton, Blyleven, etc. (everybody but Yankees) endured some bad teams.

You may be right, but it just seems to me it would even out over long careers- maybe not completely, but to a great extent.

We're talking about some huge disparities in pitcher WL PCT - Ryan's .526 vs. Seaver's .603, for example. Even Carlton's .574, which doesn't sound that great, represents 5 more wins and 48 fewer losses than Ryan.

I'm doing some research on this question just because it interests me - preliminary results are interesting!

WL Records of Ryan's teams (1968-1992 and half of 1993): 2062 Wins, 2010 Losses .506

Team Records without Ryan's decisions (1968-1992 and half of 1993): 1738 wins, 1718 Losses .502

Doesn't look like he played for that many horrible teams...

Jackie Robinson is a towering figure, IMO. His accomplishments in the context of the enormous resistance to his even playing the game are just astounding.

But it’s also worth considering that he, like so many others, was in WWII between 1942 and 1944. In ‘41, he was graduating college and playing a bit of pro football. So misfortune really prevented his baseball career from taking off before ‘45, which means that the color line, as horrible as it was, may not have had a huge impact on his final stats.

A couple of other things - I’ve seen video of him playing - I’m sure it’s available on YouTube, and man he must have been intimidating for catchers and pitchers. I can imagine that no one who was then active had seen anything like him. Also, Rachel Robinson is still alive, age 102. Due to Jackie’s sadly early death, she’s been a widow for more than half a century.

I grew up idolizing Nolan Ryan. His popularity exploded in the early 1990's when he went to the Rangers and continued to add no-hitters, and pass milestones like his 5k strikeout and 300th win. He was a humble, unassuming guy, and I read all his books and he generally just became my favorite player outside of my (favorite team) Cubs. His early cards when I was a young teenager who had just got into vintage quickly shot through the roof. The RC was out of the question, but I badly wanted just any card of Nolan with the Mets - could not make even that happen until I was older as a teenager. I eventually was also able to land a passable (but very OC) '73 Topps Ryan - arguably his greatest season - that I treasured for quite some time.

What bugs me today is the legion of fanboys and ostensibly younger people on social media who somehow have the idea that pitching is only about no-hitters and strikeouts. Nolan is "The GOAT" and somehow should be equated with Mathewson, Johnson, Grove, Koufax, Gibson, Maddux et al. in such groups. I'm sorry but this is simply not the case. I'm fine calling Ryan "the most amazing" pitcher of all time due to his unparalleled longevity, records that will never be approached and all that, but he's far from the best who ever lived.

The fact that an entire new generation of fans seem to not even know who pitchers like Gibson, Seaver, Carlton, Palmer, and others were because they are so bowled over by Nolan Ryan is troubling. Wins, and winning percentage for pitchers I can understand maybe aren't quite considered in same light as they were 50 years ago, but they should still count for something. It also ticks me off because as someone who is still very much a Nolan Ryan fan - I now have his complete run of at least the base Topps cards - they are maligning his true legacy! You can be a great, first ballot HOF pitcher and still not be the single "greatest" of all time. Nothing wrong with that.

The only arguments against Ryan have been statistically based but this is a discussion about undervalued HOFers, of which Ryan isn’t one. This thread exists because value is not exclusively tied to performance and yet someone still finds it hard to believe that collectors are interested in someone like Nolan Ryan.

You may not be referring to me directly - but I don't find it hard to believe that collectors are interested in Ryan, and never said that my comments were 100% on task to the original subject matter of the thread. :)

No my comments were directed toward the person equating Ryan with Don Sutton and Bert Blyleven, pitchers who are not the all time strike out king, who didn’t throw 7 no hitters and who weren’t successful for 27 seasons with what might have been the most perfect arm baseball will ever see.

It isn’t difficult to understand why Ryan occupies a higher place, at least in my opinion.

Right. And to me those points are Ryan's greatest asset. He was more just astoundingly unique than he was great. I don't know though why people have such a hard time recognizing that.

I have not verified this.

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.

But this thread is about players whose on field performance hasn’t equated in similar hobby success. Ryan is not part of that conversation. I don’t think there’s anything that needs to be said about Ryan because he’s exactly where he should be in terms of his hobby popularity.

To show you my long-term "perspective" and perspicacity, I traded a 1968 Nolan Ryan rookie card to a dealer for something like $400 circa 1992 simply because I had no interest in building a set of the 1968 Topps Baseball cards.

:eek:

Not difficult to understand. I don't love that set. Even the Ryan just taken on aesthetic qualities is not the best looking card in the world. But, like many others for which that can be said - it's become iconic more for what it is than purely how it looks.

Early on, especially after the 1969 World Series, it was the Jerry Koosman card.

Better than the 69 where he is pretending to be throwing the ball as it sits in his glove.

Agreed. I don't love that either, but had to get one in decent shape for my run. My favorite early Ryan is the '70 Topps high number. It's a bit of an awkward pose, and if possible Nolan looks even deer-in-the-headlights younger than he did on his first two cards.

Clearly more unique than great
 

I think everybody recognizes his uniqueness - I certainly do. And that's the basis of his appeal to collectors. I've never disputed any of that. But as you acknowledge, uniqueness doesn't necessarily equate to all-time greatness, and my comments have been intended to maintain that distinction rather than letting it get blurred.


Over long careers the W-L records of a player's teams tend to flatten out fairly close to .500 (unless you're a Yankee or something), and his own W-L record can only move the needle so much.

Just FYI, here are the team records of Ryan and the other HOF starters who debuted between 1962 and 1970

Ryan's teams with his decisions: 2062-2010 .5064
without his decisions 1738-1718 .5029
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0035

Carlton's teams with his decisions: 1789-1578 .5313
without his decisions 1460-1334 .5225
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0088

Jenkins's teams with his decisions: 1441-1405 .5063
without his decisions 1157-1179 .4952
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0110

Palmer's teams with his decisions: 1756-1242 .5857
without his decisions 1488-1090 .5772
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0085

Seaver's teams with his decisions: 1592-1584 .5013
without his decisions 1281-1379 .4816
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0197

Blyleven's teams with his decisions: 1691- 1651 0.5060
without his decisions: 1404-1401 0.5005
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0055

Sutton's teams with his decisions: 1918-1662 .5358
without his decisions 1594-1406 .5313
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0045

Hunter's teams with his decisions: 1194-1038 .5350
without his decisions 970-872 .5266
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0084

Niekro’s teams with his decisions: 1684-1765 .4882
without his decisions 1366-1491 .4781
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0101

Gaylord Perry's teams with his decisions: 1815-1686 .5184
without his decisions 1501-1421 .5137
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0047
Perry is an interesting case- he was really two pitchers, a so-so toiler with excellent Giants teams, and then a truly great pitcher for mediocre teams afterwards:
-SF team records 1962-63 (half seasons) 1964-1971 914-708 .5635 / Perry's record in those years 134-109 .5625 (no better than the teams)
-post-SF team records, 1972-1983 901-978 .4795 / Perry's record in those years 180-156 .5357 (.1632 improvement over team - much better than the teams)


SUMMARY OF IMPROVEMENT OF the TEAM RECORD:
Seaver .0197
Jenkins .0110
Niekro .0101
Carlton .0088
Palmer .0085
Hunter .0084
Blyleven .0055
Perry .0047
Sutton .0045
Ryan .0035


By this measure, Seaver is by far the greatest "winning pitcher" of this group of HOFers, and his teams overall, along with Niekro's, were the worst of the group by a big margin. Ryan's teams were middling but not terrible without him (better than Blyleven's, Niekro's, Jenkins' and Seaver's) - and he didn't make them much better in W-L terms.

for comparison, here's Walter Johnson's record:
Johnson's teams with his decisions: 1491-1523 .4947
without his decisions: 1074-1244 .4633
He improved his teams' Win PCT by .0314

I would imagine that this is the greatest improvement that's ever been made by a single pitcher on his team's record. Even so, people seem to have a somewhat inflated notion of how awful Johnson's teams were. They weren't all awful by any means.

Here are the figures I used. For 1907 and 1927 I included half the team's W-L record since Johnson played about half the season.
1907 24 51
1908 67 85
1909 42 110
1910 66 85
1911 64 90
1912 91 61
1913 90 64
1914 81 73
1915 85 68
1916 76 77
1917 74 79
1918 72 56
1919 56 84
1920 68 84
1921 80 73
1922 69 85
1923 75 78
1924 92 62
1925 96 55
1926 81 69
1927 42 34

You'll notice there are 10 winning seasons and 10 losing seasons in that time (with the 76-77 record in 1916 as a wash). The atrocious records of 1907 and 1909 have a particularly large impact on the overall W-L record. If you remove those two seasons, the overall team record goes from .495 to .510.

This is not meant to diminish Johnson's status as GOAT but to reinforce it.

I just wanted to give some context on claims made that "X or Y played on terrible teams his whole career and therefore..." [fill in the blank]

That is a really useless way to evaluate a pitcher's value to a team. Actually, it's more useless than wins, which is also a useless stat.

Unique? Yes. Seven no hitters and all-time K record? Sorry, that equates to greatness. No amount of stats or words will change that.

Yes, there are other pitchers who are great for different reasons than why Ryan was legendary.

I guess I just don't understand why it's meaningful to measure a pitcher in this way. A decent pitcher would probably improve a terrible team's winning percentage more than a great pitcher would improve a great team's percentage. For example. And I would bet there are all sorts of confounding variables too.

Yes! Ultimately, everyone wants the win, but it's certainly not solely on the shoulders of any one player to achieve that. The pitcher may get credit for the decision, but there are lots of other players and factors that determine the outcome. Therefore, I will never solely be transfixed with W-L.

Every manager wants strikeouts from his pitchers. While there are other obvious requests, "Get that guy out" has to be the big one.

Yep. A win or a loss depend half on how good the pitcher was, half on how much run support he got. Thus, people win Cy Youngs with mediocre W-L records. IIRC Ryan himself had a season where he lost twice as many as he won, but led the league in ERA.

Never doubt Frank's vocabulary.

https://www.net54baseball.com/showpo...8&postcount=14

Steven, I'm stupefied by your post, and even more dumbfounded if you used the Net54 search engine to discover and "out" my initial "vulpine" reference. My hope was that it would last in perpetuity hidden in the Archives of this forum. Your post nevertheless was kind and I thank you for it.:D

The primary job of a pitcher is to give up as few runs as possible so that his team has the best job of winning. Ryan was 12% better than the league at this. League average is a real definable thing, unlike a fictional replacement pitcher that was completely made up. This is a poor effectiveness at the primary job of a pitcher in a HOF context. There are a few guys lower, mostly bad selections or big compilers like Sutton.

Of course, Ryan is a deserving HOFer because he pitched a ridiculous number of innings, 12% over league while hurling 5,400 innings adds up to a heck of a valuable career.

The Ryan mythos is based on selective memory of his highlight reel + emotion rather than anything to do with overall effectiveness. Striking out tons of people and then walking in runs doesn't really help a team anymore than a more conventional stat line that adds up to the same run performance. People can value whatever they want, highlight reel guys tend to be more popular than math guys. Math people know Perry and Ryan are pretty similar, and so if one values guys whose measurable overall performance can be had at much lower prices (like the OP question), guys like Gaylord are undervalued (except his 66, my favorite of his cards) and guys like Nolan are overvalued.

The longevity, and the fact that he maintained his blazing fastball and no hit capability well into his 40s, are certainly part of the Ryan mystique too -- and harder to measure. In fact, if memory serves, his hobby icon status really happened in his last few years, is that right?

Where I grew up, I only heard Ryan's name mentioned one time when he was with Houston. I knew of him through the cards, but nobody seemed to talk about him. Once he moved to the Rangers, it felt like "All Nolan, all the time". This encompassed the game, the hobby and media attention to include appearances in commercials "For me, it's a couple'a Advil!". So from my personal experience, I would agree with what you say. People seemed mesmerized that this old man could still bring it.

Sports are designed to entertain the masses, first and foremost. There would be no money and no jobs otherwise. So yes, highlight reel guys are tremendous assets for everybody who makes their living in the industry. I'm not trying to be patronizing by stating the obvious.

I guess I'll just never fail to be perplexed and bothered by how down a lot of people are on Nolan Ryan on various internet forums. I don't feel it's deserved. There are so many different types of players who offer their brand of talent to the game. One's skill set may differ radically from another, yet each is an asset. As others have stated, I also condsier Ryan among the greatest pitchers, but for different reasons than different types of pitchers. He had his own way of doing things and it clearly worked out for him.

And in turn, I will never fail to be perplexed by why people are bothered by other people using fair, reasonable math even if they don't want to deal with it themselves.

I have my own bias as to the pitching GOAT, of course, but IMO there are about 15 pitchers in history for whom a reasonable case can be mounted, using different metrics, etc., and Ryan is not one of them. HOWEVER, I doubt if there's ever been anyone that batters enjoyed facing less. That, together with the freakish totals of K's and no-hitters should perhaps allow him to muscle his way onto the list.

Maybe the pitching factor is only one-third of a team's success; the other two-thirds being hitting and defense. Defense is a very underrated factor of success in baseball.

Wasn't Gaylord Perry a blatant cheater who once got caught with a tub of vaseline inside his baseball cap? And you're comparing him to the Ryan express? Guy, guy, c'mon guy.

This is a perfect example, guy. I said that Perry and Ryan are "pretty similar" in regards to their career values. Let's see.

Ryan: 324-292, 112 ERA+, 5,386 IP, 1.247 WHIP, 83.6 WAR

Perry: 314-265, 117 ERA+, 5,350 IP, 1.181 WHIP, 90.0 WAR

Well, looks like they are, in fact, pretty similar in regards to their actual career values.

They produced similar careers and values, but Ryan had the highlight reel, the press, the flashy K's (and forgotten walks) and the dedicated fanbase while Perry did not. I understand that many people are not interested in using the math or value or anything like that, and follow an emotion or who they like or who had the PR, or the highlight reel, or single game accomplishments. I do not understand why many of these people object that other people use math to evaluate instead.

Ryan has the all-time records for Ks and BBs. Cy Young holds the records for both wins and losses. It seems like they both get a lot of grief for the negatives in these online discussions.

Connie Mack, of course, is the managerial record holder for both wins and losses, and "only" 5 World Series titles in the 48 seasons he managed when the World Series existed. For not being a Yankee manager, that's actually not half bad. For being the manager of the mostly lowly A's, it's extra impressive. So, looking only at the losses, I suppose Connie wasn't a great manager... /s

Comparing Ryan to Perry...sure, some stats certainly line up, but isn't selectively omitting the other stats/accomplishments just catering to your own viewpoint? These other major factors differ greatly between the two men. Those differences are why he was given the extra attention and adulation. It only makes sense. Ryan's 7 no-hitters to Perry's one. More than twice the strikeouts than Perry in just a few more seasons of play (and yes, more than twice the walks, but I guess I'm fine with being more forgiving).

Why do the people who come down hard on Ryan like to be so dismissive of his most important records? Like I've already said, he was a different kind of pitcher and was great in his own way. Seaver was great in another way, as was Walter Johnson, etc.

K's and BB's are not dismissed, in fact I very directly acknowledged them in the written text. For the third time, what I said is that Perry and Ryan are "pretty similar" in regards to their career value. Ryan got there with the flashy K's, as I said very specifically. Perry had the more balanced route to basically the same value. Again, as I said, "Striking out tons of people and then walking in runs doesn't really help a team anymore than a more conventional stat line that adds up to the same run performance." When it comes to objective value over large sample sizes, it doesn't really matter how a pitcher gives up runs, it matters that he gives them up or does not give them up.

It is not coming down hard on Ryan to look at his objective value, it just does not reach the desirable conclusion. I said he had a heck of a valuable career. It is not insulting to look at his actual career numbers. I really do not care about emotional arguments.

Nevermind. On to other things.

My career is based around math. Analysis is part art and part science. You referenced a group of similar numbers and say they are basically the same guy. Clearly when you look at factors beyond the W/L and WAR, they aren’t.

And Bobby Grich and Derek Jeter are the same guy because they have the same WAR, Right?

Then if you object to my claim on math grounds, counter that claim that their overall career values are pretty similar with math instead of emotion.

Ryan was a freak of nature being able to do what he did well into his 40’s. His talent level was staggering and that alone will win him a place in the hearts of many fans/collectors even though his won-loss record does not match up with many other less talented HOF pitchers. To me, Ryan is comparable to Bo Jackson (minus the career ending injury), another staggering talent who collectors have fallen in love with although his numbers pale in comparison to some other marginal HOF’ers from his era.

I hear what you're saying but the comparison seems weak to me. Perhaps Ryan underachieved relative to his talent but even so he won 324 games and is by far the all time leader in Ks. And his accomplishments in his 40s are unrivaled. Bo had a WAR of 8.3 for his career. His popularity derives from the two sport thing, a bit of the "what might have been" factor, and Bo Knows.

Ask yourself the question, if you had to win a single game, it's all or nothing, are you putting Nolan Ryan on the mound or Gaylord Perry? We can twist 20 years worth of statistics into anything we want them to be, but at the end of the day, greatness is a much simpler thing.

I'd take Perry if he's allowed to have a pint of vaseline and a box cutter in his back pocket.

I don't know how many times I can say, and of course nobody can really counter the claim actually made because it is pretty obviously true, that Ryan and Perry produced "pretty similar" value over their careers, arriving there by being different types of pitchers. Of course it is twisting to look at career values (a thing we do not object to when evaluating players performance until and unless it does not suit what we demand to conclude).

Let's just pretend a single game basis is what I said, even though it's not whatsoever. I know Ryan fans believe the single game will be one of his 7 no hitters instead of a game he walks in a bunch of runs, but if I have 1) a player who performed 17% better than average and 2) a player who performed 12% better than average, over basically the exact same very large sample size, I would probably roll the dice with the guy who did 17%. As a rate, Perry was slightly more effective at not giving up runs in context, so of a single game in which I do not have special knowledge of future events or who is at the moment on a hot or cold streak, it makes sense to go with the one slightly better at not giving up runs in context.

I have never really understood the "one game" question either, unless somehow the player has a statistically significant track record of exceeding their overall performance in "big" games. It seems more like a fun, feel good exercise that doesn't really yield a meaningful answer.

Still my all-time favorite card. Love the old style hat and The Man's smile says it all as he loved life, people and just playing baseball.

It's remarkable: Ryan has 5386 career IP to Perry's 5350. Can't get any more similar than that.

In spite of all the walks, Ryan threw nearly 2200 more Ks than Perry. I'd take that any day of the week. No highlight reel needed, no no-hitter to single out; that was over his entire career. As a manager, I'd take it. As a team owner/GM, I'd take it.

He might not need them. I have read that according to his catcher, in his Cy Young season in the AL he actually did not throw a single spitball.

Yes but you have to balance that against the walks.

Some might be willing to accept more walks if it meant exponentially more strikeouts. Others clearly would not.

I don't think any of your math is wrong (although I think that simplifying everything down to ERA+ is reductionist) and am pretty comfortable with the idea that Gaylord Perry's performance on the field was of similar value to Nolan Ryan's. (Although Perry had some help from substances placed on the ball...)

What I'm confused about is the assumption that value on the field (as measured using metrics that were only identified and used over a decade after both players retired) would directly correlate with card values.

Card values are tied to popularity, which builds over time and is tied to things like memorable moments, milestones etc. Ryan was in many ways, larger than life. His fanbase is as large as almost any player in the past 50 years. The strength, durability etc. captured people imaginations.

Overall statistical success (by whatever metric you consider) is just one factor. And while I'm a fan of metrics such as ERA+ as useful tools, they are one of many ways that people measure a player's career. And I imagine, quite loosely correlated with card value.

Even if you wanted to try and use statistics as the basis for valuation, you would need a more complex mechanism, as it is clear that peak pitching performance is valued over longevity. Take Steve Carlton whose ERA+ of 115 is lower than Perry's or Blyleven's. But his 4 Cy Young Awards have some people considering him as one of the best ever.

Thanks for bringing us a back a bit on track, Jeff. That's what this thread was intended to be more about.

But a walk puts a man on base and in many cases moves up runners -- and of course extends an inning. The overall downside of that has to be greater than whatever results adversely from a ground ball or fly ball out. On the flip side, there's a reason walks have become such a huge part of a batter's metrics. No doubt Ryan was a great pitcher, but the walks IMO are a limitation.

I never once put forth the idea that Ryan wil/should sell for less or that popularity doesn’t impact card prices. I said that he sells for more and that his type sells for more - flashy highlights are more popular than steady performance. The thread is asking for the opposite - players who are bargains when comapred to what they achieved. As we discussed on page 1, this does not mean good investments.

“People can value whatever they want, highlight reel guys tend to be more popular than math guys. Math people know Perry and Ryan are pretty similar, and so if one values guys whose measurable overall performance can be had at much lower prices (like the OP question), guys like Gaylord are undervalued (except his 66, my favorite of his cards) and guys like Nolan are overvalued.”

If people want to complain, can anybody complain about something that I did, in actual reality, say in this transcript?

Let’s say we have 2 pitchers, who pitched an equal number of innings in a very large sample.

Bob gets a fairly conventional mix of outs and runners, ending up in him being 17% more effective than the league at not giving up earned runs, his primary job.

Carl is K heavy, relying on the whiff. Because of his control problems, the whiffs come with lots of walks, that end up turning into runs scored off of him. He ends up being 12% more effective than the league at not giving up earned runs, his primary job.

Would we be offended, emotional, or upset to see someone observe that Bob and Carl produced pretty similar value? Would we complain that somebody used career value as a basis to compare these two pitchers values in this first place? Would we postulate that a single game frame is more important than 5,300 innings when it comes to evaluating performance? Arguing from conclusion almost inevitably leads to really bad arguments.

The problem is how poor WAR and so-called "value" stats are at evaluating pitchers. You can conclude they have similar value. I disagree.

Do you accept the use of W/L, raw ERA, WHIP, or do you fundamentally reject the concept of using math to evaluate career effectiveness?

I don't believe there is currently a very good single metric for evaluating pitchers. And traditional things like wins and raw ERA are even worse. At this point you have to look at all numbers together and do your own math, relying on what I believe to be important things for pitchers.

Yes, that's why I listed several metrics that speak to career value. So we can't use ERA to evaluate a pitchers performance, raw or adjusted. We also have to dismiss WAR, WHIP, W/L, et al. So what numbers that we evaluate together to do our own math can we use? No-Hitter games admissible? Since the starting point that people are objecting to is my claim that Perry and Ryan are very different types of pitchers ('conventional balance' vs. the K/BB artist) who produced similar value, what numbers can you use to speak against my claim, on a logical, mathematical level instead of an emotional one?

Several people have listed stats they believe show more value. You just choose to ignore them. You reply with, "Yeah, but the strikeouts are balanced by the walks..." Statisticians are learning just how valuable strikeouts are, and the walk rate must be much higher than Ryan's to balance it out. There are many benefits to a ball not being put in play.

But again, I never said you can't evaluate value how you want. You are free to believe they provided similar value. Myself and others just disagree. While baseball is tied closely to numbers, it's also an art to evaluate value. There are 9 players on defense, and no two pitchers are facing the same circumstances. It's just not as simple as you are trying to make it. But I get it, you have a conclusion you want to reach, and you can choose numbers to bear it out. No big deal. No need to get so defensive about it. For someone so worried about removing emotion, you sure employ a lot of it in your responses.