Some thoughts on the subject...

Baseball fandom IS emotion. You can’t possibly quantify what makes a player so beloved that his cards are ‘overvalued.’


With Nolan Ryan, there’s a truckload of reasons for the adoration and here are a base (pun intended) few:

• Miracle Mets
He started his career as a Met, in the huge New York market, and was part of their 1969 championship, which for the longest time (perhaps still?) was the greatest World Series victory ever. That cast a long shadow that still follows him to this day. We Mets fans are nutjobs. His “Folo card” (first solo) is from that 1969 championship year (which intangibly adds to its value) and is highly sought after everywhere you go.

• Multigenerational
Some players lasted long enough that fathers and sons both were able to cheer for them in their younger days, but it’s a very rare event when someone is multi-multigenerational (probably not a word). Grandfathers, their sons, and their grandchildren all could’ve been actively rooting for Ryan in their times. He played on and on and on, and never seemed to lose his...

• Fastball
Like power hitters and their monster home runs, so is a blazing fastball strikeout to a pitcher. You want him to 'K' the batter, and the bigger the name of the hitter, the better. Ryan was perceived as throwing the ball faster than any human being alive ever. No way to quantify that, of course, but that’s what fans thought every time he took the mound.

But even the word "fast" doesn’t really cover it. He threw super hard, which is a word that combines blazing velocity with stopping power. You'd think anyone stepping into the batter's box would feel intimidated and backed into a corner facing him. They'd have to keep their front foot at the ready for a quick bail out, all the while thinking, "If he hits me, I'm dead!!!" :eek:

• Silent Warrior
His approach to the game is something that should be emulated by all players these days. He went out every fourth day and did his job. There was no showboating or look-at-me-ism. If he was able to pitch, he went out and pitched. We all remember when his no-hitter and Rickey Henderson’s record-breaking stolen base occurred on the same day. Rickey declared himself “the greatest,” and Nolan simply smiled and doffed his cap to the crowd. That work ethic combined with modesty goes a long way, especially in a hard-working state like Texas.

This is an outright lie. Run the tape again.

Bill James is someone on Earth. Peter and I are not the only people on Earth. We produced an expert who very literally selected Perry over Ryan. Whether I would or would not is irrelevant. Stop lying.

For the millionth time, my argument is that they are pretty similar in career value, very close together in career value. Which one edges the other is absolutely irrelevant, because my argument is that they are pretty similar. I cannot dumb it down for you anymore.

Which pitcher would you rather have?

For like the fifth time, I am not interested in starting a new argument because you keep lying and cannot find an argument against what I actually said. I know it would be a lot easier for you to change my position, but I am not changing my position.

So Nolan Ryan then.

Are you genuinely illiterate?

OMG the SABR guy said it -- he would rank Ryan behind Perry.

Excuses, Excuses

One excuse given for Ryan’s unimpressive winning percentage is that he pitched for poor teams. This argument must be rejected. It is true that Ryan outpitched the teams on which he played, but it wasn’t by much. His 12-13 composite from 1966-1969 (he didn’t pitch in the majors in 1967) gave him a .480 winning percentage, while the Mets in those three years went 239-246 for .493. In 1970-1991, he won at a .526 rate, compared to his teams’.504. On average, Ryan was roughly 13-12 for a team that was 81-80. Even when he pitched for good teams, Ryan had records just a few games over .500.

The Wins Above Team (WAT) statistic, which compares a pitcher’s W-L mark to that of his team also fails to support the Ryan-was-a-hard-luck-pitcher claim. Total Baseball lists the top 100 pitchers in WAT, and Ryan (along with Wynn and Sutton) doesn’t make the top 100. Through 1996, Young was first, with a career WAT of 99.7. Babe Adams (194-140) and Allie Reynolds (182-107) tie for ninety-eighth place with 20.2. Russ Ford, with his short career (99-71), makes the list with 24.3. With a WAT of less than 20.2, Ryan is less than one win above his team per year. In contrast, Seaver and Koufax with respective WATs of 58.9 (sixth place) and 30.6 (fortieth place) respectively, average three wins above their teams per season.

Nolanmania

So why does Ryan get so much more adulation than Niekro, Perry, and Sutton, in whose class he belongs (I would rank him behind Perry, but ahead of Niekro and Sutton), and even more than Seaver, Carlton, and Jim Palmer, direct and far superior contemporaries? I think it may be that every time he pitched, fans and sportwriters anticipated something special. Even on a bad night, the fastball was explosive. On a good night, he could strike out double figures. On a great night, he might pitch a no-hitter. With Ryan, total domination was always a possibility. Total domination always excites us.

Still, it is strange that the public — and especially the writers — substituted the glitter of strikeouts and no-hitters for the gold of victories. When you get right down to it, Ryan’s mediocre record is inexplicable: he was difficult to hit, had good ERAs, and didn’t allow many homers (his top home runs allowed in a season was 20 in 1982). If you refer back to Table 1, you will see that with the exception of Ed Plank, every pitcher from Grove down to Carlton was considered, in his prime, the best pitcher in his league, if not in all of baseball. Ryan can’t come close to making that claim. And just because he should have been the equal of Grove, Mathewson, Johnson, Seaver, et al. doesn’t mean he was.

Too late Peter, his new argument is that when he said nobody on Earth, only you and I qualify, and since my position is that they are pretty similar, that somehow means via the transitive property of he's-completely-making-shit-up that I pick Ryan and so he is right.

Two Nolan Ryan’s. Good choice.

To channel the Rodgers and Hart song, you didn't say yes, you didn't say no, therefore I'll take that as a yes.

And the question is asked, because even while telling outright lies, he was unable to come up with an argument against what was actually said. Got to shift the goalpost. Incredible lol

You use the word "math" a lot. I'm not sure you know what it means.

True. I am the worst and stupidest man alive, I am not even aware of math even is as a concept or a word.

Now, it is still true that Perry and Ryan produced pretty similar value over their careers while being two different types of pitchers.

He’s the only one here who understands math. Also everyone else is getting emotional, even though he’s the one who has written like 100 posts and 20,000 words on the subject today. What a total lack of self awareness.

The argument is not without merit. I only wish you had chosen someone who wasn’t a (self professed) blatant cheater who actually took pride in his cheating. The man does not belong in the HOF not that I consider myself much of a moral arbiter.

Sincere question, was there ever a serious movement to keep him out, or even a serious objection to him while he was active? I don't recall there being any. He won two Cy Youngs, for example, and I don't recall anyone (at least in 82) saying but but there should be an asterisk blah blah.

And he refuses to engage any other discussion outside the extremely limited and pedantic parameters he has set, like a petulant child. His pedantry in this is only eclipsed by his extremist abuse of a figure of speech by insisting it be taken literally. Ironically, he isn't pedantic enough to recognize the distinction between ranking a career and choosing a person as a better player.

He made it in the third ballot with some saying the delay was due to his various shenanigans.

I already concede that I am the worst man to ever live and the stupidest. Now, can you finally put together a coherent, logical argument not relying on your magical ability to artistically analyze pitchers free of math, that my claim that Perry and Ryan had pretty similar value over their careers is false?

Maybe there would be more scrutiny and outrage today, different mentality/tolerance level? I mean it's really hard to believe he only got caught once.

I don't know how many of the stories are true and how much was Perry blowing smoke for attention or to keep people guessing. If he did cheat frequently I would be sympathetic to an argument that he doesn't belong in the Hall.

That one is still lost on me. How can I rank A higher than B but think B is a better pitcher? Isn't the essence of the ranking to order who I think the best pitchers were? Seems non-Euclidean or something.

My expectations are low but even I am a little surprised this is the argument they want to stick with. That ranking pitchers by their careers and choosing Perry 16th and Ryan 24th is not ranking Perry over Ryan is just... seriously lol. The response always has an advantage in the Socratic over a claim. I set the claim, they just have to get 1 argument that disproves it, with unlimited tries while I don't get to reset my claim. Surely there is a better argument against my claim than this absurdity that James' ordered rankings of the best pitchers are not ranking who is better.

Let me give an example. Len Bias is on no one's list of the top 100 basketball players of all time. Yet if I were choosing a team and he was available, I'm picking him. Career rankings of players take far more into account than just a player's ability. I'm not saying James would choose Ryan, just that his list of career rankings doesn't answer that question.

Or the SABR person who says expressly, I rank Ryan below Perry. Could he really say that yet think Ryan is better? Call me pedantic too, but I don't get it.

Your understanding of math is amazing compared to your understanding of logic. (Hint: it's not good).

It's not pedantic, it's just a lack of nuance.

For the third time, I am the stupidest man to ever live. You are the smartest. You are the greatest logician in human history. I am vermin. Fine.

Can you put together a coherent, logical argument not relying only your magical art you can't define that the claim I made is wrong?

Explain the difference please.

For the 5th time, I was not debating your ridiculously limited point of career value stats. It's a stupid exercise that you have insisted on because you are incapable of actually discussing the comparisons of the players.

I did above. You conveniently ignored it.

So after your day of fits and insults, you can't even disagree with the actual claim I made, and you are pissed off because I didn't make a different claim that you want to argue against, and so I am stupid.

This board lol

Ironically, after a day of fits and insults, you still refuse to answer my question: you can pick one of the two to go out and win a game for you, who are you picking?

Do you seriously not see your own hypocrisy in this?

(By the way, I do disagree with your assertion)

Posts coming in fast and furious did not see it. I don't see how that logic possibly applies to two guys who pitched 20 plus years. Explain to me how I could rank Ryan below Perry but think Ryan was a better pitcher.

I guess that's your prerogative. My list of best careers is very different from my list of best pitchers. Same for hitters. It is what it is. The question asked matters. Who had the best career is a different question than who was the best. And will sometimes result in different answers, even between players with similar longevity. In order to know James' answer to those questions, you have to ask those very specific questions. Not rely on a ranking that's an answer to a different question.

How is it hypocritical to not let you force me into a new position I did not claim? My claim is not whether Perry or Ryan are better. All I said was that they had pretty similar values over their careers, and several people had meltdowns all day over it, even as they can't argue against the claim made. You still refuse to put together an actual argument against my actual claim and are just throwing out insults about how stupid I am because I didn't change my position to be a different position you want me to have so you can argue against this different position instead of the actual opinion I said and hold. You don't see how that makes no sense whatsoever?

Then how are you defining best pitcher? Best at his absolute peak? Best in a five year stretch?

This is one way to read what happened today, I guess. Asking you a different question than you raised is not forcing you into a new position. It's asking a question. Just like you are demanding an argument addressing your point, others have just as much right to ask the same of you. And just like you refuse to respond, we have the right not to play within your parameters. This whole thing is because you think you're in charge of a message board discussion.

You absolutely have the right not to argue the claim I made. And I have the right to stick with my actual opinion and not change it to be what you want to argue instead. But you have been insulting me all day for my claim. Read the transcript. You don't have to play, but if you're going to insult me over and over again because of my claim while refusing to actually make an argument against it, that's really weird and not rational. You chose to play when you lost control and went emotionally angry. It is not unreasonable of me to expect people upset over my claim to have a logical argument against my claim.

Huh? I haven't insulted you for your claim. I disagree with your reliance on some metrics I don't care for, but I didn't insult you for it. The only insults I've made were regarding your crappy attitude. In fact, I willingly concede those metrics show a similar value between the two as those metrics define value.

As I've said before, yet you ignore, I am not emotionally invested in your claim at all. I'm a fan nor collector of either. You are the emotional one here.

Okay. I am too stupid to do math or logic, but that has nothing to do with the math or logic involved herein and is disconnected from it. You actually mean attitude when you do this. Gotcha.



After ~200 posts of tantrums about my claim without a single actual argument made against it, is anyone going to posit one? No?

For someone who refuses to be pushed into making different claims than you made, you sure put a lot of words in my mouth.

The only tantrum I see is yours. You made a claim several people disagreed with and got your panties in a bunch demanding people argue with you about it.

Do you have an actual argument or counter claim yet?

The same one I made that you refuse to respond to: that I don't give two craps about career value metrics, but I'll take Ryan over Perry 7 days a week and twice in Sunday if I'm picking a team on the playground. You are welcome to argue about career metrics with the wall, since you want to so badly.

Still waiting for this mysterious list of insults I made about your claim...

Okay. After ~200 posts, does anyone have an actual argument against my claim or are we all done here gents to move on to the next claim?

For what purpose are you picking the team? To win one game? For a season? The next 10 years? Are you picking him at his peak? At the average of his 5 year peak? At a level that would be representative of his overall career? Your hypo doesn't mean anything unless you define your terms? 1973 Ryan? 1993 Ryan? Somewhere in between?

Is your ego so fragile that you are still here begging for someone to reassure you that you can read baseball reference by yourself?

Doesn't that sort of highlight the point that James' list might need a bit more nuance before you can claim it means what you claim it must mean?

No, because James defines what he's doing, he's doing overall careers giving what he thinks are appropriate weight to total stats, peak, etc. I don't have it in front of me but it's sort of like the JAWS metric. You haven't defined your terms at all, you're just throwing out a loosey goosey execcise, picking someone for a playground.

I don't understand why you say you don't care and yet keep trying to have a personal beef, even after conceding you can't find any argument against my claim. If you don't care, then move on. If you do care, than make a reasonable argument . I don't get why you are so upset over a claim you can't even counter. Why do you so badly want me to debate something else with you?

What math would we be talking about if not the math of my claim? Its pretty obvious.

What logic if not the logic of my arguments and statements in this thread? If it's about another topic, then go argue in that other topic.

All you have are insults. If you don't care about my claim and career values, stop throwing a fit over it all night lol

Precisely. James defined his list as overall career. You attempted to extrapolate that to who was "better." Yet you couldn't seem to understand how one could be "better" yet have a worse career. My whole point was James' list was different than was being claimed here by the person you were arguing with.

First, I don't know what you think is happening here, but I am not arguing what you seem to think I am. I am not upset in the slightest, by your claim. I'm not sure why you seem to think I am. I think you want someone to argue with your claim so bad you believe anyone who says something to you is challenging your claim.

Second, what you call using math, I call reading a statline on a website. Quit pretending you are doing any calculations. That's why I said it doesn't mean what you think it means. I was taking a jab at your repeated claims of using math, when you aren't using math at all.

The logic comment was in direct reference to your argument about use of Bill James' list.

For someone who likes to refer to the transcript, you sure don't pay much attention to it.

Nobody else has defined what they meant by better. Feel free. I asked before but you batted it back. Obviously I understand that a list of career rankings need not be the same as a list of peak rankings. But again, tell me the different meaning you are ascribing to better.

You asked for examples, you got them. TIL that using math in an argument isn't using math because you didn't write the equation. Gotcha. You can be as angry as you want about a claim you have pretty well conceded was actually correct. Can we move on or do you need to get out any more criticisms and shots? Feeling okay yet? Ready to act like you don't care instead of just saying you don't?

Still begging for reassurance, I see. It would be funny if not so pathetic.

Any more you need to get out or was that it?

Because how I define better isn't relevant. You were teaming up with G1911 on another poster who was making the "Ryan is better" argument. You insisted James' list meant he believed Perry was better. All I did was jump in to point out the flaw in your logic, because James' list didn't answer the "who was better" question because that wasn't what James' list was doing. So it doesn't matter how I would personally define better for me to show that there can be a definition of better that James wasn't using.

I'll go ahead and let you have the last word, since it will clearly send you spiraling into depression if you don't get it. Make it worth it.

That's a horrible answer, you're smarter than that. What makes you think James had a different definition of better than his overall rankings? Why on earth would we assume he did? As I read James, he was trying to come up with a list of who he considered the best pitchers. He had a certain approach in mind to that question. Again, what possible reason is there to believe he had some different list of which pitchers were better?

Mhm. I hope you feel better now.

I don't really want to get involved in this discussion, but I would like to point out that James blended career and peak values for his rankings. It's not just career.

Correct. I pointed that out. But apparently he had some secret definition of "better" that our two friends know but can't share. This has become truly surreal.

You're smarter than that. You were discussing better according to another user, which was different than James'. So you can't possibly say that because James made a list using his formula, that he would come to that same conclusion using a different formula (namely that of the person you were arguing with here).

By ranking Perry 16th and Ryan 24th, James of course could have meant that Ryan was actually the better pitcher and he would really put him over Perry.

Peter, I would like to apologize for the times I have criticized your arguments in our many debates. The worst positions any of us have ever held are vastly better than the arguments we have witnessed today.

Is this your great technique, to parrot things back? You did it in the Goldin thread too. Packs never said he was using some specific, different meaning of better. He just kept repeating himself that Ryan was better and then retreated to how obvious it was and how everyone agreed. If he had said, well I'm defining it in terms of Ryan at his best, or Ryan in 1973, or whatever, we would not have needed any discussion. He never suggested he meant it in any sense other than overall assessment.

Seriously? Are you going to suggest when packs said "better" he didn't mean better as defined by him, but someone else?

This is truly an insane thread. The logic here is bizarre.

Again, he never said how he defined it, or that he was defining it other than in an overall career sense. You are the one who has problems with logic. To refresh, his proposition, which you apparently echoed, is that one's ranking of pitchers is somehow different from one's assessment of which pitchers are better. I have heard nothing justifying that yet.

Whatever, man. It was obvious he was not referring to career value. If you thought he was, you were clearly mistaken. It's not my problem with logic, but your problem with reading comprehension.

This is such a stupid discussion. I'm out.

What was he referring to then? His best single game? His best single year? His best three years? His best five? If it was so obvious, you must know?

BTW the easiest thing for Packs to have done was simply to disagree with James' analysis on the merits. Fine, everyone has an opinion. But instead, he offered the weird proposition that a ranking of pitchers was somehow different from the question of which pitchers were better. And then he compounded it by claiming no one thought Perry was better. That's how we got here. And I am yet to understand it.

Speaking of head shots, the most appalling display of these occurred in the 1964-65 Topps Hockey which was the first sport card set to come out as "tall boys". They weren't actually very popular with kids in the schoolyard despite being the first Hockey set in a decade to include all six NHL teams. First of all, the first series was priced at a dime a pack (at least in the neighbourhood variety stores in my corner of London, Ontario). Moreover the cards were too long to easily fit in a kid's pockets.

But the tall boy format of these cards lent itself splendidly to the proportions of the human body and this was in full evidence in the first series:

https://hosting.photobucket.com/85c5...65fde65c26.jpg

Of the 53 non-Checklist first series cards, only eight were less than fantastic full body shots and four of these were coaches anyway. But an atrocious 43 out of 55 cards from the second series featured truly wretched head shots:

https://hosting.photobucket.com/85c5...546fea425c.png

Because the first series didn't sell very well, O-Pee-Chee's production run for the second series was comparatively small. As a result, second series cards are a lot tougher to find these days than those from the first series. Moreover quite a few cards were shortprinted on the second series sheet. While I still need six of the shortprints from the second series to complete my set, I'm disinclined to pay the price those ugly head shots command these days. I'd rather spend my money on better looking cards.

:(

As to "Who would you rather have on your team?", let's look at it from the position of a GM.

Chronologiacally, Perry's time with a team that ever came close to being in contention to win a WS occurred mostly before Ryan's career began to find its footing, so Perry would be the only choice for those particular seasons if we're using a true timeline. Additionally, Ryan's record with his lone WS championship team was very minuscule and not an accurate representation of what people would come to expect from him after he had a few more season under his belt, so I wouldn't wish to use that in my consideration, either. That's fair, isn't it?

For the years where Ryan and Perry were productive at the same time, neither man was pitching for good teams for the most part. Now, if anyone else wishes to go back and review every single season of both Ryan's and Perry's teams from 1971 onward, be my guest, but in several of these situations, the GM had to have known that their teams wouldn't be in contention to win the WS. Now, I wish to reiterate that I am only speaking of seasons where these pitchers' careers ran alongside each other and when they both played for lousy-to-average teams. Yes, Ryan's teams found some moderate success a handful of years, while Perry did have that one season with the 1980 Yankees.

What always matters above all to a GM? Money. How does my team bring in more asses to fill the seats? With ridiculously fast and hard pitching and the possibility of the fans witnessing some magic. We're not getting anywhere this season, so that difference of a few percent between Perry and Ryan is far less consequential from the vantage point of an obvious non-contender.

The fans bring emotion to the table. They want to be entertained. They bring the money, and money matters most to the continued existence of a team. If there's no shot at the coveted WS purse and additional revenue, we're going to have to do our best to profit in other ways. If those factors can't be included in these types of discussions, then we are not looking at the full picture. Baseball is not solely number crunching. If math is all that can be included in such a discussion, there have to be SABR forums that would be a better fit. The discussion of baseball without considering emotion just does not make any sense to the vast majority of people.

I wonder why baseball was never done in the true "tall boy" format. I guess because the '64 Topps Giants had come out and were never really super popular...

Many names have been mentioned in the undervalued category that I agree with. Kaline, Banks, Robinson, Collins, Jimmie Foxx as well. All stellar players that can still be found for reasonable prices IMO. I'd argue Hank Aaron is found at good prices as well considering what he did for the game. His Rookie Card isn't stratospheric in price.

As for the more recent discussion. I think Nolan and Perry were both fantastic pitchers. I'd be happy with either of them. I think the numbers give the edge to Mr. Perry, but I would probably want Nolan Ryan on my team. Just something about him that I can't put my finger on. SABR had an interesting discussion on this that I will link below.

https://sabr.org/journal/article/the...s-long-career/

Baseball Reference has Rick Reuschel ranked as the 32nd best starting pitcher of all time. I can accept that whatever mathematical parameters BR used to come to that conclusion. Parameters have to be applied the same way to everyone and the results are the results.

Jim Palmer is ranked 43rd by BR. Personally, I feel as though there is plenty of room to say I’d choose Palmer over him every time. But I guess you can’t if the rankings are rankings.

Yes I posted that before and quoted from it.

Not at all. One can absolutely disagree with the rankings. There is certainly nothing sacred about Bill James' rankings. That was not at all my point.

Do you think that the people who developed the parameters for BR’s ranking also believe that Palmer was an inferior pitcher because the ranking has him where it does compared to Reuschel?

I would assume so, as they obviously think their methodology captures who really were the best pitchers in what order. The whole point of this type of metric -- and of course you are free to disagree with it -- is to reexamine traditional assumptions.