Who are the most "over-valued" players

[brianp-beme]

Nolan Ryan averaged 199 innings per year during his 27 year career. Even if you subtract out his first four years and his last year, which involved five of his six lowest innings pitched per year totals, his innings pitched per year is 219 during that 22 year stretch. As a reminder, Cy pitched an average of 334 innings per year during his ENTIRE 22 year career.

Brian

[jchcollins]

I'm not sure about Nolan Ryan's cards being super overvalued, but it certainly seems that for postwar HOF pitchers - his and Koufax's cards are in a different league than just about everyone else's.

I do think Ryan is overrated (unfortunately; he's one of my favorites) just in terms of how worshipped he is to this day by the garden variety modern baseball fan. At a high level, he was more unique than he was great - and great pitching is more than just strikeouts and no-hitters. Many of those touting Ryan as "the GOAT" all over social media seemingly have never heard of Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Tom Seaver, Steve Carlton, Jim Palmer, Fergie Jenkins, Gaylord Perry, and the list goes on from the 1960's to the 80's. That's just not right. For most if not all of those guys, Ryan has the advantage in K's and no-no's, and they have the advantage in literally everything else that goes into winning pitching - Record, ERA, BB %age, WHIP, FIP, CYA's, etc. etc. To me that's just not right. Nolan Ryan appeared in more than 800 games in his 27 year-career and he's the "GOAT" because of what - 7, 19, 30-something of those games? The no-hitters are impressive sure, but to me they have just been vastly blown out of proportion here in the 21st century.

[Touch'EmAll]

MLB lowered the mound in 1969 because the pitchers dominated a bit too much. So, Ryan came in just after they adjusted in favor of the hitters.

Can you imagine what Ryan may have done with the higher mound pre-1969 !