Fair warning.....this article ended up a lot longer than I originally thought it would because I kept finding things that I thought were interesting and worthy of inclusion.  Well, they were interesting to me, and I hope they are to you as well. 

 

Introduction - "The Issue"

 

In the 1995 movie "The American President", there's this little exchange that I love.  Annette Bening's lobbyist character is trying to put an end to the budding romance that is developing between her and the President of the United States (played by Michael Douglas) because of all of the inevitable character attacks that she's warning him he would face if they continue to see each other.  She brings up a list of reasons why they should end it now, and in the middle of that exchange he interrupts and asks her point blank if she's attracted to him.  That catches her off guard, then she hesitates, and then she tells him that's not the issue, and he replies "Well, I tell you what.   Let's make it the issue."

 

I thought of that when composing this article.  There are lots of things in this premise that are not the issue, but it would be easy to stray into those distractions if we don't define it adequately and stay on topic.  So, if you would, please keep the following in mind as you proceed through this article:

 

·         The issue is not Hall of Fame worthiness. 

·         The issue is not who had the more valuable career or even the more valuable "peak". 

·         The issue is not which pitcher a team would prefer to have on the roster over a period of years. 

·         The issue is not even about which pitcher a team would prefer to have for a single season.

 

The issue is: faced with a game or a short series, and assuming both Gary Nolan and Nolan Ryan are available and healthy, who would you rather send out to the mound?  Who would likely be the more effective pitcher?  Who would give your team the best chance to win?

 

I'm making that the issue. 

 

Background

 

Often I wonder where my next article idea is going to come from.  This one happened to emerge from the fertile grounds of the Bill James Online Reader Posts section of this site, where members bat around a wide variety of topics.  As always, I encourage members to check it out and participate.

 

A thread was initiated by member billfrontz.  I checked with him to make sure he didn't have any reservations about taking his thread and premise to a larger audience, and he gave his blessing, so a big thank you to him for that.  And I hope he doesn't mind me "tweaking" the premise a bit. 

 

Oh, and before I forget....another shout-out to member jgf704, who, when I posted that I was interested in turning the topic into an article, suggested the "Nolan vs. Nolan" title.  So thank you to jgf704 for that.

 

Here is billfrontz's  initial post that kicked it off, and I'll post a couple of follow-ups to level-set the premise:

 

"If I had a pitching stall of Dave McNally, Ron Guidry, Gary Nolan,and Doc Gooden, and a lineup of Rolen 3rd. Nomar G.ss, Willie R.2nd. Mattingly 1st, Oliva rf. Edmonds cf. Minnie M. lf. and Munson catching.. I would take on Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, Gaylord Perry, and Phil Niekro and any lineup of post 1960 hall of famers you choose in a seven game series, and I really don't think the HOF ers would have a chance.  In other words I will put what I see on the field VS war or win shares every time."

As you might imagine, this provoked quite a few strong reactions.  Leaving the WAR/Win Shares comment as well as the position players angle  out of it for the time being and focusing on just the pitchers  (which I believe was the main thrust of his premise, as we'll see in a moment), you've got 4 clear cut Hall of Famer pitchers, all of whom exceeded 300 career pitcher wins, against 4 non-Hall of Fame pitchers, all of whom were quality pitchers who pitched for successful teams, but who ultimately had much shorter careers.  At first glance, it seems like a mismatch.

 

When pressed on his initial post, billfrontz replied with the following:

 

"The point I am attempting to make is that my 4 pitchers, who will never see the HOF unless they visit it , are better than the 4 HOF pitchers I gave the HOF team, and since my team is very good on offense and defense, I believe my team would win in a 7 game series. All 4 300 game winners and not one of them was a guy a manager would want to have on the mound in a do or die game."

 

When pressed further again (in particular as to a specific question whether he really thought Gary Nolan was better than Nolan Ryan), he replied again with the following (note that the ellipses below indicate that I intentionally left out a portion that was not relevant to this article, and I omitted it so as to not be a distraction):

 

"How is Nolan better than Ryan?   He had a winning % over 100 higher.....Perry and Niekro were compilers. It is my contention that my 4 pitchers at their best were better than the 300 game winners."

 

Now, I'm sure the immediate response by many of you to that particular point is that wins, losses, and winning percentage as pitcher stats have their limitations, issues, and illusions, and I certainly agree with that.  So hold that thought, and we'll return to it later.

 

So, there's a lot there to chew on and unpack, and certainly there are some provocative positions, which I actually love seeing.  I can already hear the arguments and counter-arguments many of you are formulating in your head, because I surely had them myself.  However, my nature is to keep an open mind and think through a topic as opposed to just having gut reactions, and that led to my desire to dig further.

 

Ground Rules

 

A couple of ground rules I want to establish for this review, because I'm taking the liberty of tweaking the premise a bit, focusing on some aspects of it while not digging into others.

 

1) Although billfrontz's initial post went beyond just the comparison of the pitchers into the realm of position players, the pitcher comparison is what I'm going to focus on here, as it sounded to me like that was more at the heart of his argument.

 

For one thing, even if you do buy the premise that the non-Hall of Fame pitchers are as good or possibly even better than the Hall of Fame pitchers that were named, I seriously doubt anyone would be convinced that they would provide any edge sufficient  to offset the apparent advantage of a "post-1960's" Hall of Fame lineup that could be assembled.  That lineup would probably consist of players something along the lines of Johnny Bench, Jeff Bagwell, Joe Morgan, Cal Ripken, Mike Schmidt, Rickey Henderson, Ken Griffey Jr., and Tony Gwynn, although you might come up with different options (I excluded players like Aaron, Mays, Clemente, etc., who were mostly pre-1970).  Billfrontz's stated non-Hall of Fame lineup of Munson/Mattingly/Randolph/Nomar/Rolen/Minoso/Edmonds/Oliva, while quite good, would appear to be distinctly below that of a post-60's Hall of Fame group.

 

As a quick aside, one of our more long-standing members (evanecurb) suggested that, instead of allowing someone to select any post-1960's Hall of Fame position players, what if you went with a somewhat "less imposing" Hall of Fame group?  It's his idea and he suggested some names, although I'm (of course) going to offer up my own suggestions (some of which are the same as he came up with).   What if the opposing lineup were something like Carlton Fisk/Eddie Murray/Craig Biggio/Barry Larkin/Paul Molitor/Jim Rice/Kirby Puckett/Vlad Guerrero?  (this would presume Molitor would be the third baseman).  I think that might make for an interesting competition with billfrontz's squad.

 

In any case...... I'm not tackling that angle anyway.  But it would be interesting to dig into.  Perhaps a separate article?

 

2) Although I will certainly make references and bring in data related to the larger groups that included Perry, Niekro, Sutton, Gooden, McNally, and Guidry,  I'm limiting the bulk of my analysis to the two "Nolans" - Gary Nolan and Nolan Ryan. 

 

Beyond just the coincidental nature of their names, Gary Nolan and Nolan Ryan represent, to me, the most interesting individual contrasts among pitchers in those two groups.  And since I'm taking a deep dive on those two and that's going to involve a lot of time and content, I'm not going to be able to cover the other 6 pitchers to the same degree.  Again....perhaps in another article?

 

Along the way, I'm going to make extensive use of baseball-reference.com data, not only for basic information, but information that they have under sections such as "Advanced Stats", "Neutralized Stats", "Splits", and "Game Logs", including a few specific metrics that I don't recall ever looking at or leveraging before.  I'll also throw in a few other data points and summaries along the way.  It'll be a smorgasbord.....

 

Set Up

 

To level-set the discussion, and before we focus on the two Nolans, let's pull in some basic career data from the two quartets.  I know that I said at the opening that the career totals aren't what's critical for this, but I do want to include them simply as a starting reference point that I think many or even most people would start with, so let's be sure we at least touch on it.

 

By the way, the Hall of Fame quartet is especially notable in this regard; they are four of the most prolific and durable pitchers in history, and they have the four highest innings pitched totals for any pitchers post-1930.

 

Most career innings pitched, MLB:

 

Rank	Player	IP	From	To
1	Cy Young	7,356.0	1890	1911
2	Pud Galvin	6,003.1	1875	1892
3	Walter Johnson	5,914.1	1907	1927
4	Phil Niekro	5,404.0	1964	1987
5	Nolan Ryan	5,386.0	1966	1993
6	Gaylord Perry	5,350.0	1962	1983
7	Don Sutton	5,282.1	1966	1988
8	Warren Spahn	5,243.2	1942	1965
9	Steve Carlton	5,217.2	1965	1988
10	Pete Alexander	5,190.0	1911	1930

 

Here are some basic career numbers for the 2 groups:

 

Hall of Famers:

Name	From	To	Yrs	G	GS	IP	W	L	W-L %	ERA	ERA+	rWAR
P. Niekro	1964	1987	24	864	716	5,404	318	274	.537	3.35	115	95.9
G. Perry	1962	1983	22	777	690	5,350	314	265	.542	3.11	117	90.0
N. Ryan	1966	1993	27	807	773	5,386	324	292	.526	3.19	112	81.3
D. Sutton	1966	1988	23	774	756	5,282	324	256	.559	3.26	108	66.7

 

Non-Hall of Famers:

Name	From	To	Yrs	G	GS	IP	W	L	W-L %	ERA	ERA+	rWAR
D. Gooden	1984	2000	16	430	410	2,800	194	112	.634	3.51	111	53.0
R. Guidry	1975	1988	14	368	323	2,392	170	91	.651	3.29	119	47.8
G. Nolan	1967	1977	10	250	247	1,674	110	70	.611	3.08	117	25.9
D. McNally	1962	1975	14	424	396	2,730	184	119	.607	3.24	106	25.5

 

Averages and ratio (or difference) comparison between the 2 groups:

Group	Yrs	G	GS	IP	W	L	W-L%	ERA	ERA+	rWAR
Average - HOF	24.0	806	734	5,356	320	272	.541	3.23	113	83.5
Average - Non-HOF	13.5	368	344	2,399	165	98	.627	3.28	113	38.1
HOF vs. Non-HOF Ratio or Difference	1.8	2.2	2.1	2.2	1.9	2.8	(.086)	0.05	0	2.2

 

The ratio/difference line compares the ratio of the figures of the Hall of Famers vs. the non-Hall of Famers, except for W-L%, ERA, and ERA+, which are shown as differences (subtractions)  between the 2 groups.  

 

What that ratio/difference line indicates is that the Hall of Famer group (using the averages of the 4 pitchers in each group) pitched roughly twice as many years, twice as many games, twice as many innings, and accumulated  roughly twice the career WAR (and directly comparing Ryan to Nolan, you're talking about Ryan roughly tripling (or higher) Nolan's career numbers).  The only "advantage" for the non-Hall of Famers is that their collective W-L% was 86 points higher.

 

The Hall of Fame group also had a slightly lower career ERA, although the ERA+ figures of the 2 groups are essentially the same.  In fairness to the Hall of Fame group, I should note that stats like ERA and ERA+ (as well as many other rate/ratio stats) do tend to worsen the longer a player plays, because the inevitable "decline phase" that most players experience tends to have a deterioration effect on those types of stats.  Not in all cases, of course, and not always very extreme effects, but in general, they do.  Therefore, you could reasonably observe that the non-Hall of Famers, who had abbreviated careers, probably have ERA and ERA+ figures that are somewhat buttressed by not pitching for several years beyond what they already had in the books.  More on that later....

 

So, if this were a marathon, or simply a comparison of bulk, career totals, it's a no-brainer.  The Hall of Famers basically lapped the non-Hall of Famers in terms of most of the raw, basic numbers.

 

As opposed to bulk, what about if you look at the rate or ratio stats?

 

Name	ERA	ERA+	H/9	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	IP/G	WAR / 200 IP
Phil Niekro	3.35	115	8.4	5.6	3.0	1.8	6.3	3.5
Gaylord Perry	3.11	117	8.3	5.9	2.3	2.6	6.9	3.4
Nolan Ryan	3.19	112	6.6	9.5	4.7	2.0	6.7	3.0
Don Sutton	3.26	108	8.0	6.1	2.3	2.7	6.8	2.5

 

Name	ERA	ERA+	H/9	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	IP/G	WAR / 200 IP
Dwight Gooden	3.51	111	8.2	7.4	3.1	2.4	6.5	3.8
Ron Guidry	3.29	119	8.3	6.7	2.4	2.8	6.5	4.0
Gary Nolan	3.08	117	8.1	5.6	2.2	2.5	6.7	3.1
Dave McNally	3.24	106	8.2	5.0	2.7	1.8	6.4	1.9

 

Averages	ERA	ERA+	H/9	K/9	BB/9	K/BB	IP/G	WAR / 200 IP
Hall of Famers	3.23	113	7.8	6.8	3.1	2.2	6.7	3.1
Non-Hall of Famers	3.28	113	8.2	6.2	2.6	2.4	6.5	3.2

 

Kind of evens it out, doesn't it?  Ryan distorts several of the categories because he's such an extreme type of pitcher, but overall, they stack up fairly well.  Of course, as mentioned earlier, rate stats tend to work against pitchers with long careers as they include the inevitable decline phase, and our non-Hall of Fame group basically had much shorter careers, so that does tend to help them out in this view.

 

But, again, what we're ultimately exploring is who may be more "effective" in a game or a short series, not who had the better careers.    So, next I'd like to take a deep dive into both Gary Nolan and Nolan Ryan, because I think they represent a very intriguing pitching contrast.   

 

Nolan vs. Nolan - The Early Years

 

First, a moment to reminisce on some background information regarding Gary Nolan and Nolan Ryan from their formative stages. 

 

The two pitchers are of the same general vintage - Ryan was born and drafted a year earlier than Nolan was -  so that helps with some of the comparisons.  It is true that Ryan ultimately split time fairly evenly between the 2 leagues, whereas Nolan was almost exclusively a National Leaguer, meaning that, at least for some of the years that we will be comparing them, Ryan was facing a designated hitter in the opposing starting lineup rather than a pitcher.

 

Of the two pitchers, Gary Nolan strikes me as clearly having been  the more highly regarded prospect, at least initially.  They were both drafted out of high school, but whereas Ryan was a 12th round pick in the very first amateur draft that was ever held (1965), Nolan was the 13th overall selection in the first round of the next year's (1966) draft.  Nolan got a $40,000 signing bonus (not too bad for those days), where as Ryan did not receive one, and was drafted in the portion of the draft where it can be very hit-or-miss (Ryan turned out to be the only 12th rounder from that year's draft to ever appear in the Majors).

 

In the minors, both were "spectacular" in many ways, but Nolan definitely seemed to be the more well-rounded pitcher, while Ryan was more raw: 

 

·         Nolan Ryan debuted in the minors at 18 at Marion in the Appalachian league, striking out 13.3 per 9 innings but walking 6.5, ending up with a 3-6 W-L ledger and a 4.38 ERA.  Ryan's final Minor League record told the story of a raw but talented pitcher - over 49 games and 291 innings, he went 21-10 with a 2.85 ERA, striking out a whopping 13.8 per 9 and allowing a miniscule 5.7 hits, but walking 6.2 per 9. 

 

·         Gary Nolan, in his two stops at age 18 in the minors went 12-6 over 23 starts and 176 IP, yielding 6.6 H/9 and walking 2.8 per 9, while striking out a still-impressive 11.7.  Nolan's minor league K/BB ratio was more than 4.0, about double that of Ryan . 

 

They were both impressive in their own ways, but I would have to say Nolan was by far the more well-rounded and complete pitching prospect prior to debuting in the Majors.

 

In 1967, Nolan had what was arguably the greatest pitching season by any teenager in history.   There are several pre-1900 teenage pitchers who posted impressive seasons as well (Amos Rusie, Tommy Bond, John Ward, Mike Smith, among others), but their results were heavily influenced by extremely high levels of innings pitched that were typical of pitchers in those early seasons.  If we limit the scope to post-1900, I would say the main contenders for the greatest teenager pitching season would be among Gary Nolan '67, Dwight Gooden '84, and Bob Feller '38.  

 

Here are a few of the top candidates, using 3.0 WAR as a minimum threshold:

 

3.0 or more WAR, teenage pitchers, 1900-present

 

Player	WAR	Year	Age	Tm	G	W	L	IP	H	BB	SO	ERA	ERA+
Gary Nolan	6.3	1967	19	CIN	33	14	8	226.2	193	62	206	2.58	147
Dwight Gooden	5.5	1984	19	NYM	31	17	9	218.0	161	73	276	2.60	137
Bob Feller	5.1	1938	19	CLE	39	17	11	277.2	225	208	240	4.08	113
Chief Bender	4.1	1903	19	PHA	36	17	14	270.0	239	65	127	3.07	99
Rube Bressler	3.5	1914	19	PHA	29	10	4	147.2	112	56	96	1.77	148
Wally Bunker	3.4	1964	19	BAL	29	19	5	214.0	161	62	96	2.69	134
Bob Feller	3.4	1937	18	CLE	26	9	7	148.2	116	106	150	3.39	133
Larry Dierker	3.3	1966	19	HOU	29	10	8	187.0	173	45	108	3.18	108

 

Note the presence of Feller on the list twice, once as an 19-year old, and once as a 18-year old.   Feller also had another noteworthy season as a 17-year old that didn't make the cutoff.

 

Considering the entire spectrum of categories, I think you would have to go with either Nolan or Gooden as the #1, although I'm sure Wally Bunker still has his passionate supporters lurking around.   I suppose I'd lean towards Gooden, but it's close.

 

Nolan Ryan had a cup of coffee with the Mets at age 19 in 1966, but continued to refine his skills in the minors for a couple of more years.  He re-emerged in 1968 at age 21, and then really made a name for himself in 1969.  In that year, Ryan  pitched in 25 games in the regular season (starting 10, relieving 15), but made his biggest splash  in the postseason. 

 

In the clinching game 3 of the first ever NLCS, Ryan came on in relief of Gary Gentry and was amazing, pitching the last 7 innings of the game to earn the win, yielding only 3 hits and 2 walks, striking out 7, and allowing just 2 runs.  The Mets came from behind to win 7-4 to sweep the series.  Then, in the World Series against the Orioles, Ryan once again came on in relief of Gentry (once again, it was game #3 of the series), though only for 2 1/3 innings this time around, as Gentry and Ryan combined on a 5-0 shutout win, with Gentry getting the win and Ryan getting the save.  That victory gave the Mets a 2-1 lead in the series as they went on to eventually winning the series in 5 games.

 

Ryan was more or less a regular part of the Mets' rotation during the 1970 and 1971 seasons, making starts in 45 of his 57 appearances over those 2 years.  He wasn't bad, with a 3.71 ERA and combined ERA+ of right around the league average, but he remained a talented but erratic pitcher.  At the same time, Nolan was a consistent part of the Reds' rotation, although he missed time in both 1968 and 1969 with injuries, foreshadowing his future ailments. 

 

By the end of 1971, Nolan had a pretty decent leg up on Ryan in their career numbers up to that point:

 

Name	W	L	W-L%	ERA	G	GS	IP	H	BB	SO	ERA+
G. Nolan	61	42	.592	2.98	144	141	980.2	834	306	727	123
N. Ryan	29	38	.433	3.58	105	74	510.0	369	344	493	98

 

Name	CG	SHO	HBP	WP	H9	HR9	BB9	K/9	K/BB
G. Nolan	27	10	11	18	7.7	0.7	2.8	6.7	2.4
N. Ryan	13	2	24	23	6.5	0.6	6.1	8.7	1.4

 

Those numbers reflect Gary Nolan through age 23 and Nolan Ryan through age 24.  Nolan is ahead 17.5 to 3.0 in career rWAR. 

 

It's pretty one-sided at this point in their careers, isn't it?  I mean, Nolan basically has a big edge in most categories except for Hits/9 and Strikeouts/9.

 

Of course, as they say, it's not where you start....it's where you finish. 

 

The Next Phase

 

After the 1971 season, this transaction occurred, marking a pivotal moment in Ryan's career:

 

December 10, 1971: 

Ryan traded by the New York Mets with Frank Estrada, Don Rose and Leroy Stanton to the California Angels for Jim Fregosi.

 

Fregosi had been a very good player with the Angels, a 6-time American League All Star shortstop.  He had possibly his best season in 1970 before having a down year in 1971 at age 29. 

 

The Mets were looking for a solution at third base, as they had basically changed their third baseman just about every year of their existence up until that point.  They traded for Fregosi in the hopes of playing him at 3B (although he had no prior Major League experience at the position) with the intent of stabilizing that position for at least the next few years.  Fregosi turned out to be a bust with the Mets, however, and was sold to the Rangers in mid-1973. 

 

The trade is still commonly referred to as one of the more lopsided in baseball history, as Nolan Ryan soared with the Angels.  In his 8 seasons with the franchise, he led the AL in strikeouts 8 times and made 5 All Star teams, as he basically set the tone for the rest of his career.

 

Meanwhile, back in the National League, Gary Nolan was experiencing a mixed bag in this phase of his career.  His 1972 was exceptional as he went 15-5, 1.99 and was 5th in the NL Cy Young award voting (that was the year of Steve Carlton's monster 27-10, 1.97 season with the dreadful Phillies), but Nolan once again started missing time due to injuries.  He missed all but 2 games in 1973 and sat out 1974 completely. 

 

Nolan came back with good seasons in 1975 and 1976 as one of the key members of the rotation on the back-to-back World Champion Reds.  Nolan led the NL both years in fewest walks per 9 with stellar figures of 1.2 and 1.0, respectively. 

 

This latter phase marked the completion of the transformation of Nolan's pitching style.  Nolan had entered the league as a dynamic young pitcher, as he led the NL in his rookie season of 1967 with 8.2 strikeouts per 9 innings.  No doubt a path was cleared by the retirement of Sandy Koufax after the 1966 season and the beginning of the decline in team mate Jim Maloney's strikeout rates,  but there were still several very strong strikeout artists remaining in the NL, including Bob Veale, Steve Carlton, Don Wilson, Bob Gibson, and Jim Bunning. 

 

Nolan wasn't able to repeat that strikeout pace in subsequent years, however, dropping to the 6.0-7.0 per 9 innings range during the next few seasons, and by 1975/1976 he was down in the 3 to 4 per 9 inning range.  The onslaught of injuries had taken its toll and forced him to alter his approach to pitching.   He was still a very effective pitcher as he was able to limit the number of base runners, but over time he became a very different pitcher than the one he had started out as. 

 

Nolan pitched briefly (and poorly) in 1977 for the Reds and was shipped to the Angels in mid-season, where he and Ryan were teammates for a short while, but that was basically the end of the road for Nolan.  Meanwhile, after Nolan's final season, even though Ryan was only one year older, Ryan  continued to pitch (and pitch well) for another 16 seasons.  Ultimately, Ryan tripled most of Nolan's career stats.

 

Have a Slice

 

OK.  So we know Nolan got off to a better start, but eventually Ryan lapped Nolan and then some in his career numbers.  But how to compare them for the question at hand, which is: who would you rather start in a game (or short series)?  This evaluation is more in the realm of game simulation. 

 

I played a lot of game simulations in my formative baseball years (in my day, they were more board and dice games like Strat-O-Matic or Sports Illustrated Baseball as opposed to playing on the computer), and game simulations are more about trying to re-create the players by boiling their performances down to the probabilities of the various events that take place on the field.  That is, how often would a particular hitter hit a home run or a triple or a double or a single, how often would he strike out or hit into a double play, how often would a batter/pitcher confrontation result in a walk, what is the impact of playing stronger defensive players, etc.  The simulation represents the likelihood of all of the individual player events, and then you play it out, at-bat by at-bat, game-by-game.

 

I started playing a lot of these board games in the 1970's, with a heavy emphasis on rosters that used franchise "all-time all star teams".  At that time, the player whose card was most likely to yield a home run was, not surprisingly, Babe Ruth.  But do you know who had the second highest likelihood?  It wasn't Jimmie Foxx, nor Hank Aaron, nor Mickey Mantle, nor any of the other players who had 500 or more career home run hitters.  It was Ralph Kiner, he of the 369 career home runs.   Why?  Because, at that point in time, on a per-AB (or per-PA) basis, Kiner was second only to Ruth in terms of home run %.  His career was short, but he was second only to Ruth in the likelihood of hitting a home run in a particular plate appearance (that honor would now go to Mark McGwire in an updated version).  The probabilities are the key in a game simulation.

 

So you have to start with some meaningful comparisons and some data to work from.  For the two pitchers in question, I figured the best way to start to compare them from a probability standpoint was to use a method I call "slicing".  In short, I took what I consider to be a meaningful and representative "slice" of each of their careers to use as the basis for further analysis. 

 

Slicing is a compromise between simply comparing players by career totals in bulk and comparing them by career rate totals.  It's meant to be fair to both sides and to get at the essence of a player's abilities and performance. 

 

Ryan's huge edge in bulk totals aren't relevant because we're talking about just a game or a short series of games.  We're simulating games, not careers.

 

By the same token, if we reduce Ryan's career to just his rate stats, it's a bit unfair to Ryan because rate stats tend to suffer the longer a player performs, because most players go through a decline phase.  Not always, and it's not always severe, but typically.

 

I felt that Gary Nolan's representative slice should cover the 10 years from 1967 to 1976 (his age 19-28 seasons).  In his case, that's almost his full career anyway, but it does exclude that last season that isn't, in my view, representative of what we truly want to evaluate him on.  Also note that, even though it covers 10 actual baseball seasons, Nolan essentially missed 2 full seasons (and parts of others).   So, even though I already stated at the outset that the question assumes availability, the time that Nolan missed is something we can consider in the final evaluation and assessment. 

 

For Ryan, I also took a 10-year slice.  However, I did not take the same 10 years age-wise as Nolan (which would have grabbed his age 19-28 seasons), as that would have included his time with the Mets while he was still waffling between starting and relieving and still trying to find his way, so I didn't think that was representative of his essence. 

 

I also did not select Ryan's 10 best individual seasons.  That method is what many sites refer to as "peak".  For example, the JAWS Hall of Fame evaluation method (which averages career WAR with a player's "peak" WAR) takes a player's 7 highest WAR seasons and uses that to represent "peak", even if the seasons are not consecutive.  That's not what I'm doing, as I don't think that's appropriate for this evaluation.

 

What I did do was to take what I felt was Ryan's most favorable 10 year slice, but I required that the seasons had to be consecutive.  That way, I feel you get a better sense of the player and capture some natural ups and downs over a sufficient time frame, rather than just isolating and plucking out his best seasons.  I feel like that's more representative of a player's "essence", and you can omit the "ramp up" and the "decline" phases in most cases.  In fact, maybe "prime" would be a better adjective  to refer to what I'm trying to capture.

 

For Ryan, I decided on the years 1972-1981, which represent his age 25-34 seasons, so he was 6 years older than Nolan was over his comparable time slice.  Nevertheless, I feel that these years represent the best basis for our evaluation. 

 

Ryan's time slice captures all 8 of his Angels seasons and the first 2 of his Astros career (one of which was a strike season).  It actually would be interesting to try this evaluation with different slices of Ryan's career, because, especially towards the end, he did exhibit much better control and had a better K/BB ratio, but also didn't log as many innings.  But, 1972-1981 is the slice I went with.  It contains what I feel are his best seasons, but also includes a few (like '76 or '78 where his ERA+ was below average) that weren't ultimately among his best efforts. 

 

Is this a perfect way to compare?  No, it's not.  And, I'll concede that Nolan's data really is the blend of two different Gary Nolans, as early in his career he was more dynamic in terms of striking out batters, where as over his last few seasons he was one of the best at avoiding walks.  I'll make a reference to that near the end, but ultimately I decided to keep the "blended" Nolan rather than segment Nolan's data further.

 

By the way, most of the data to follow is courtesy of baseball-reference.com, although a few of the individual points had to be calculated based on the available data, but that site is the source of most of the numbers.

 

How Do They Compare?

 

OK....now we're getting to the heart of the matter.  Here is the raw, basic data for both pitchers over their respective 10-year slices. 

 

Name	Slice	W	L	W-L%	ERA	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	HR	BB	SO
G. Nolan	1967-1976	106	66	.616	2.97	234	45	14	1,617	1,421	136	399	1,007
N. Ryan	1972-1981	160	136	.541	3.01	344	165	45	2,564	1,824	127	1,468	2,756

 

Clearly, Ryan in his 10-year slice was more durable and less susceptible to missing time, as he started 110 more games than Nolan did (not surprising, since Nolan missed basically 2 full seasons plus at least a couple of other partial ones). 

 

Ryan nearly doubles up Nolan's rWAR (46.4 vs. 26.3), and that's probably more than enough for many to run with Ryan as the better choice and declare "game over", but, again, a lot of that is related to Ryan's much larger total number of innings pitched.  WAR attempts to represent quantifiable value, but it also tends to have an cumulative effect similar to pure counting stats.  Now, WAR can go down, and you do see negative WAR figures, but as long as you're pitching well, it should continue to go up as you pitch more and more innings.  Of the top 25 individual WAR pitching seasons, 22 were pre-1900 (and the other three were two seasons by Walter Johnson in the 1910's and one by Cy Young in 1901), and that is certainly related to the high number of innings pitched by pitchers of that era, particularly of the pre-1900 crowd.  Most of those top WAR pitching seasons were generated by pitchers logging more than 500 and even 600 innings.  You don't see any "modern" era pitchers on the list until Dwight Gooden (1985) at #26 and Steve Carlton (1972) at #27.

 

So, with our two pitchers....if you put their respective rWARs into 200-inning contexts, Ryan's ahead of Nolan about 3.6 to 3.3.  Still ahead, but not a huge difference.

 

Here's how those other stats translate into a type of seasonal notation (this would be their stats per 34 starts):

 

Name	W	L	W-L%	ERA	GS	CG	SHO	IP	H	HR	SO	BB
G. Nolan	16	10	.615	2.97	34	7	3	234	206	20	146	58
N. Ryan	16	14	.533	3.01	34	17	5	253	180	13	272	145

 

Of course, as you probably noticed, this favors Nolan to some degree because, while Ryan was able to typically able to make 30 or more starts a year, Nolan was about a 50/50 proposition on that front....in 5 of the 10 seasons in question he made 30 or more starts, in 3 seasons he made 16-25 starts, and in the other 2 seasons he basically didn't pitch.  But, again, seasonal notation is more about representing numbers as if they represented a "full" season, not an "average" one.

 

Next, let's look at the stats from some "ratio" or "percent" comparisons.   I would consider these stats as better measures of how effective the pitchers were when they pitched, as opposed to how prolific they were over time.   I think these really start to clarify some clear distinctions between the two pitchers:

 

Name	ERA	ERA+	FIP	WHIP	H/9	HR/9	BB/9	K/9	K/W	IP/GS	CG %	SHO %
G. Nolan	2.97	121	3.14	1.126	7.9	0.8	2.2	5.6	2.5	6.9	19.2%	6.0%
N. Ryan	3.01	116	2.90	1.284	6.4	0.4	5.2	9.7	1.9	7.5	48.0%	13.1%

 

Nolan has a slightly lower ERA, a better ERA+,  issued walks at a 60% lower rate, and had a better K/BB ratio).   On the other hand, Ryan was stingier with the hits and gave up homers less frequently.  In addition, Ryan was able to consistently pitch deeper into games, as well as being more than twice as likely to complete his starts (back when that was still "a thing" that starting pitchers did).  Ryan was also a more dominant type of pitcher, not just in striking people out, but also in terms of being twice as likely to toss a shutout. 

 

So, they're very different types of pitchers, although they were pretty close in the bottom line result of run prevention (Nolan does have a decent edge on ERA+).

 

OK, that's a start.  What else can we consider? 

 

How about quality of team, and how did that play into Nolan's advantages in terms of things like winning percentage and other potential areas? 

 

First a little sidebar:

 

Pitcher Wins and Winning Percentage

 

Talk about a stat that doesn't get any respect any more (cue Rodney Dangerfield)..... 

 

Pitcher wins, as anyone of my vintage knows, used to be king when evaluating starting pitchers.  But, over time, both fans and analysts have become aware through the works of Bill James and many others that they often don't tell the whole story.  Pitcher wins (as well as pitcher losses and the resulting W-L %) don't reflect a pure individual ability to win or lose. 

 

I'm sure you are aware of most of the caveats, including but not limited to:

 

·         A pitcher can get a win in a game in which he pitched relatively poorly

·         A pitcher can be hung with a loss in a game in which he pitched relatively well

·         The number of runs that a pitcher is supported with can greatly impact his won-loss record, and run support often can take a very long time to even out, even among pitchers on the same team, and sometimes it never truly evens out.

·         Relief pitchers often "vulture" wins in games in which they had very little to contribute towards the actual winning

·         Bullpens can "blow" games in which the starting pitcher was in line to win

·         Wins and losses are heavily influenced by the overall quality of a pitcher's team

·         Many people balk at the concept that a pitcher should, in essence, get the full "credit" for an event that requires the entire team to "win"  (or "lose")

·         That darn luck factor......

 

All of which is true, and much more.  As a result, wins, losses, and winning percentage on a pitcher's ledger have lost a great deal of luster over time.

 

However....

 

I have to admit that I'm not one of those who would advocate getting rid of any of those stats, illusion-riddled though they may be.  I don't like tossing stats out the window.  I much prefer to keep them, but then try to understand them, to see through their distortions, and put them in perspective to see what, if anything,  they can tell us. 

 

On that subject, I'd like to step back in time, about 33 years.......

 

One of my favorite Baseball Abstracts was the 1987 book (the one with the yellow cover), because it contained two of my favorite Bill James essays.  One was on rookies, which I referenced in an article I wrote a while back regarding an updated look on the best rookie classes.  The other major essay in that book was entitled "Meaningful and Meaningless Statistics".  Towards the beginning of the essay, when addressing how he responds to people who ask him about the most meaningless and meaningful stats in baseball, Bill wrote this:

 

[Excerpt from 1987 Baseball Abstract, page 9]

 

My general answer is that the first and most serious mistake people make in talking about baseball statistics is that of trying to sort them into "meaningful" and "meaningless" statistics.

 

The categories don't fit.  Statistics aren't "meaningful" and "meaningless";  that's just a way of cutting down the amount of information that you have to deal with.

 

All baseball statistics are in one way or another related to wins and losses; thus no statistic is 100% meaningless.  If a baseball statistic is meaningless to you, that is simply because you don't know what it means.

 

[End of excerpt]

 

In my opinion, I feel like that sentiment still holds up really well even all these years later.......

 

What Bill did end up doing in this article was to evaluate several statistics by 3 different criteria on a 10-point scale:

 

1) Importance (how does the statistic correlate to winning?)

2) Reliability/Integrity (to what extent does the statistic truly reflect the ability of the player?)

3) Ease of Comprehension/Intelligibility (can people make sense of the stat?)

 

Pitcher's W-L % were assigned a 10 on both importance and intelligibility.  In fact, W-L % was the only stat that received a 10 on importance, because it is the only basic player stat that directly measures winning and losing.  Other stats play a part in winning and losing, but W-L% is the only one that directly measures it.   

 

So, it received a "10" in importance.....however, he only assigned it a "4" on reliability, citing many of the common issues with it as far as it failing to truly reflect the ability of the pitcher himself.  In fact, Bill observed that, where as for most stats the best predictor of future performance is past performance in the same category, that's not true of W-L record.   ERA, as it turned out, was actually a better predictor of future W-L records than the W-L record itself.  And that lack of reliability, in the final analysis, prevented a pitcher's W-L record from being included in his top 10 most meaningful status (it ended up as #17).   We certainly have to be skeptical when dealing with a pitcher's W-L record, especially in a given season. 

 

However, despite all of the caveats, Bill also made the point that, despite the reliability issues associated with a pitcher's W-L record in a given season, those issues tend to become less of a factor over the course of many years and a career.  That doesn't mean the issues completely disappear, of course, but they do tend to be less of a concern. 

 

He rated the reliability of W-L record for a career as an "8" rather than a "4", a much healthier level of reliability.  Again, many of the same issues with "Wins" and "Losses" for a pitcher still exist, and I also think it's especially true in today's MLB environment where starting pitchers tend to not go as deep into games.  But, pitchers wins and losses are not meaningless, even if they don't always provide the whole story every time.

 

Returning to Nolan vs. Nolan

 

OK...so what does all of that mean for Nolan vs. Nolan?  Well, one of billfrontz's original premises was that he preferred the quartet of Gooden, Guidry, McNally, and Nolan to the Hall of Fame quartet of Perry, Niekro, Sutton, and Ryan, in part, because the first group was much more successful in terms of winning percentage. 

 

And, no doubt, they did have much higher winning percentages than the 4 Hall of Famers did.  The question, then, is how much of that was attributable to the pitchers themselves, and how much of it was "other stuff"?   After all, in our mythical competition, we're lifting the pitchers out of their career situations and environments and plunking them down with different team mates and different opponents.

 

Certainly, it's clear that Nolan, Guidry, Gooden, and McNally pitched for some of the truly great teams of the last half-century or so.    Each of the 4 pitchers owns 2 World Series championship rings (although Gooden's 2nd one was with the 2000 Yankees, for whom he did not play a major role). 

 

Of the 4 Hall of Famers, Ryan is the only one with a ring, and that was primarily as a reliever on the 1969 Mets.    Perry, in his long career, only made the postseason once (1971 Giants).  Niekro only appeared twice (1969 and 1982 with Atlanta).  Sutton's teams were a little more successful at getting to the World Series (4 times with the Dodgers, once with the Brewers), but none of those teams won the title.  And Sutton basically had a career winning percentage at the same rate that his teams won overall (56%).

 

So, generally speaking, the 4 non-Hall of Famers tended to pitch for better teams.  That doesn't mean they were innocent bystanders who had nothing to do with the success of their teams, because they were all key contributors to their teams' successes, but it does mean that they tended to receive better support and were in better overall team situations more conducive to winning.

 

So, again, focusing specifically on Nolan vs. Nolan again, does the winning percentage advantage of Gary Nolan over Nolan Ryan mean anything at all?  And if so, how much?  Let's dive into it.

 

Again, here are the relevant basic figures over the 2 slices:

Name	Slice	W	L	W-L%
G. Nolan	1967-1976	106	66	.616
N. Ryan	1972-1981	160	136	.541

 

How did their teams do over this time frame both with and without those pitchers?  This next table captures wins, losses, and W-L % for:

·         All games for the team

·         Games started by that pitcher

·         Games started by other pitchers on those teams

·         The pitcher's individual decisions

 

Lots of data here, but I think the most important things to focus on are the percentages out to the right and the totals at the bottom.  Let's do Gary Nolan first (note that there may be slight differences to the totals above because each pitcher had some relief appearances in those seasons, and the table only reflect games in which they started):

 

Gary Nolan

Year	Total Team Wins	Total Team Losses	Nolan Games Started	Team Wins in Nolan Starts	Team Losses in Nolan Starts	Team Wins in Other Pitcher Starts	Team Losses in Other Pitcher Starts	Nolan Pitcher Wins	Nolan Pitcher Losses	Overall Team W-L %	Team W-L % in Nolan Starts	Team W-L % in Other Pitcher Starts	Nolan W-L %
1967	87	75	32	17	15	70	60	13	8	.537	.531	.538	.619
1968	83	79	22	13	9	70	70	9	4	.512	.591	.500	.692
1969	89	73	15	8	7	81	66	8	7	.549	.533	.551	.533
1970	102	60	37	26	11	76	49	18	7	.630	.703	.608	.720
1971	79	83	35	16	19	63	64	12	15	.488	.457	.496	.444
1972	95	59	25	16	9	79	50	15	5	.617	.640	.612	.750
1973	99	63	2	0	2	99	61	0	1	.611	.000	.619	.000
1974	98	64	0	0	0	98	64	0	0	.605	n/a	.605	n/a
1975	108	54	32	21	11	87	43	15	9	.667	.656	.669	.625
1976	102	60	34	20	14	82	46	15	9	.630	.588	.641	.625
Totals	942	670	234	137	97	805	573	105	65	.584	.585	.584	.618

 

So, to recap, Nolan had a shiny .618 winning percentage based on his personal W-L record in his official decisions.  But when you look at the total team performance in games started by Nolan vs. games started by some other Reds pitcher, the results are nearly identical - the team won 58.5% of the games in which Nolan was the starting pitcher, and 58.4% of the games where he was not the starting pitcher.  Some years the team did better when Nolan was the starting pitcher, while in some years (such as the 1975 and 1976 World Championship teams) the team didn't do as well in his starts as they did with the others.

 

Now, overall, this is not a bad thing.  A team winning 58.5% of its games  in a 162 game schedule translates to a 95-67 record.  It means the Reds were a very good team overall, and Nolan essentially did his job while pitching for them.  He didn't elevate the team's performance, but he didn't pull the team down either.  The Reds were a very good team, and Nolan was a good pitcher.  He did his job.

 

Now, you might still be inclined to look at Nolan's individual W-L record in just his decisions, where he was credited with the win 61.8% of the time.  Is that a better indicator of his impact?

 

Well, let's look at that.   What's the story there?  Well, part of the mystery might be unlocked by these 2 pieces of data that I had never looked at before on baeball-reference.com (under the "Advanced Pitching Stats" section).  It captures these 2 events:

 

Wins Lost  - defined as: At the time the pitcher faced his final batter the pitcher was in position for a win, but game was subsequently blown by bullpen.

 

Losses Saved - defined as:  At the time of his last batter the pitcher was in position for a loss, but the team subsequently came back to tie or take lead.

 

Here are the number of times each of those two scenarios happened for Nolan:

 

Year	Nolan Wins Lost	Nolan Losses Saved
1967	3	4
1968	6	2
1969	1	0
1970	3	9
1971	2	4
1972	2	1
1973	0	0
1974	0	0
1975	0	5
1976	4	5
Totals	21	30

 

So, if I'm thinking through this correctly, Nolan missed out on 21 potential extra wins because his bullpen wasn't able to hold the lead.  However.....the team also bailed him out 30 times by erasing deficits in games that Nolan could have been hung with the loss based on the score of the game at the time he exited.

 

Taking those 2 points together, I think it's fair to conclude that Nolan's shiny .618 W-L % was, at least to some degree, attributable by how his team performed after he left the game.  To play a little "what if game".....what if Nolan got the win in those 21 games but also was assigned the loss in those 30 games?  His adjusted W-L record would then have been 126-95, for a .570 winning percentage.   That's still good....that translates to 92-70 over a full season....but not quite as the overall quality of the team he played for.

 

I think those results above are consistent with 2 things in particular:

 

1) A strong offense that is capable of overcoming deficits, and

2) A strong bullpen that holds the opponent at bay

 

I think both of those are at work here.  Obviously, most of those Reds teams had great offenses.  In addition, the Reds were notorious for having a strong bullpen in those years, with Sparky "Captain Hook" Anderson at the helm for most of Nolan's seasons (Anderson started in 1970).  Anderson, as  his nickname implies, was certainly not shy about deploying his relievers.  During Nolan's years with the Reds, both before and during Anderson's time, they had notable and effective relievers such as Ted Abernathy, Wayne Granger, Clay Carroll, Pedro Borbon, Rawly Eastwick, and Will McEnaney.  Just to throw out one example, in 1975, when Nolan didn't have the bullpen blow any of his leads but the team came back to erase 5 of his potential losses, the bullpen had a collective 2.79 ERA (compared to 3.67 for the Reds' starters).

 

So, if I'm thinking through this properly,  I do think that Nolan's sterling individual W-L% is certainly positively impacted by the quality of the team he was on.  But, it's still a good record.

 

OK...what does Nolan Ryan look like?  Here's the same table for Ryan, remembering that the team figures for 1972-1979 are with the Angels, and 1980-1981 are for the Astros:

 

Year	Total Team Wins	Total Team Losses	Ryan Games Started	Team Wins in Ryan Starts	Team Losses in Ryan Starts	Team Wins in Other Pitcher Starts	Team Losses in Other Pitcher Starts	Ryan Pitcher Wins	Ryan Pitcher Losses	Overall Team W-L %	Team W-L % in Ryan Starts	Team W-L % in Other Pitcher Starts	Ryan W-L %
1972	75	80	39	22	17	53	63	19	16	.484	.564	.457	.543
1973	79	83	39	21	18	58	65	21	16	.488	.538	.472	.568
1974	68	94	41	24	17	44	77	21	16	.420	.585	.364	.568
1975	72	89	28	16	12	56	77	14	12	.447	.571	.421	.538
1976	76	86	39	18	21	58	65	17	18	.469	.462	.472	.486
1977	74	88	37	21	16	53	72	19	16	.457	.568	.424	.543
1978	87	75	31	16	15	71	60	10	13	.537	.516	.542	.435
1979	88	74	34	18	16	70	58	16	14	.543	.529	.547	.533
1980	93	70	35	22	13	71	57	11	10	.571	.629	.555	.524
1981	61	49	21	13	8	48	41	11	5	.555	.619	.539	.688
Totals	773	788	344	191	153	582	635	159	136	.495	.555	.478	.539

 

The  Angels were a losing team from 1972-1977, but then they had a winning record the last 2 years Ryan was there, and the Astros were a winning team in 1980-1981 (the 1981 team record during that strike season would be the equivalent of 90-72 over a full 162 game season).  Since there's such a clean break, let's split Ryan's record into 2 segments (1972-1977 as "Losers", and 1978-1981 as "Winners"):

 

Group	Total Team Wins	Total Team Losses	Ryan Games Started	Team Wins in Ryan Starts	Team Losses in Ryan Starts	Team Wins in Other Pitcher Starts	Team Losses in Other Pitcher Starts	Ryan Pitcher Wins	Ryan Pitcher Losses	Overall Team W-L %	Team W-L % in Ryan Starts	Team W-L % in Other Pitcher Starts	Ryan W-L %
Losers	444	520	223	122	101	322	419	111	94	.461	.547	.435	.541
Winners	329	268	121	69	52	260	216	48	42	.551	.570	.546	.533

 

Some observations?  Ryan's individual W-L %  was pretty similar across those 2 groups - he actually won 54% of his decisions with the "Losers" and then went down to 53% with the "winners". 

 

The big difference I see (again, not unexpected) is that, for the "Losers", his team did much better with Ryan on the mound than it did when the other pitchers on his team started (54.7% vs. 43.5%).  When Ryan got to the better team, that difference was much smaller (57% winning percentage in Ryan's starts vs. 54.6% in other pitcher's starts).  It was still a net positive, but just not nearly as big a one. 

 

So, what to make of all of this?  I think there's certainly compelling evidence that Ryan had a positive impact on the poor teams, and gave those clubs more than a fighting chance to win, and there's a lot to be said for that. 

 

Referencing those "wins lost" and "losses saved" stats that we looked at for Gary Nolan, Nolan Ryan lost 13 potential wins and was saved from 21 potential losses during this time frame.  One thing you may notice right away is that Ryan had those situations happen to him a lot less often than Nolan did.  Nolan had a "win lost" or a "loss saved" 51 times in 234 starts, or about 22% of the time.  Ryan had it happen 34 times in 344 starts, or only about 10% of the time.  If we applied those situations like we did with Nolan, it would make Ryan's adjusted W-L record 172-157, for a .523 winning percentage (which is really close to his career actual W-L % of .526)

 

Now  just because Ryan outperformed his team does not proves that he was a more effective pitcher than Nolan.  I would assume it's easier to outperform your team mates on a poor team than it is on a good team. 

 

But, I do think it's fair to say that, when we look at Nolan's .618 winning percentage and compare that to Ryan's .541, I don't think it tells you the whole story.  Nolan pitched well for a good team, and they basically won equally well both with him and without him.  Ryan pitched well for a poor team during most of those 10 years, and pitched well enough that they were able to win more games than not when he pitched.   And when he went to a better team, it still did a little better in games he started than it did with others, though not by nearly as much.

 

In short, I don't believe that, in this "competition", the individual W-L records of Nolan and Ryan play much of a part as to who was more effective.  I think we need to focus on other elements.

 

More Comparisons

 

Neutralized Stats

How about if we use baseball-reference.com's "Neutralized" stat tool.    The site explains the concept:

 

"We adjust all of a player's seasons from the park and league context of the seasons they played in into either a "neutral" setting (which is 100 park factor with 162-game season, 90% of runs earned, and 688 runs/team), or into a setting selected by the user with a particular year, league (with its runs/game and earned runs percentage) and home team (with its park factor)."

 

What happens to the two pitchers when putting into a "neutral" setting for the years in question?

 

Name	Type	W	L	W-L%	ERA
G. Nolan	Actual	106	66	.616	2.97
G. Nolan	Neutralized	104	76	.578	3.06
N. Ryan	Actual	160	136	.541	3.01
N. Ryan	Neutralized	163	132	.553	3.33

 

Ryan's W-L record is similar though slightly better than before, while Nolan's is distinctly worse (about as many wins, but 10 more losses), although Nolan's is still better on the surface.  Both players' ERAs increased.  However, where as previously the ERA's were very close, now Nolan's is 27 points lower than Ryan's.

 

Which, I think, makes sense when you look at the adjustments being made.  When you look at Ryan's career home/road splits, he was much better at run prevention in his home parks than he did on the road.  40% of his career starts were at Anaheim Stadium or the Astrodome, and he had a career 2.36 ERA in Anaheim Stadium and a 2.77 mark in the Astrodome.  Ryan's overall career home ERA of 2.77 is nearly a full run lower than his career road ERA of 3.73, and he pitched 25% more innings at home than on the road.  Nolan has a favorable home/road split as well (2.83 vs. 3.37), but it's not nearly as big of a difference as Nolan's.   So, Ryan's neutralized ERA took a bigger hit.

 

Team Support

 

I would consider team support to be of 2 primary types:

1.       Quality of team offense

2.       Quality of team defense

 

Even before diving into it, the natural presumption would be that both of these would favor Gary Nolan.  For the most part, the teams that Nolan pitched for were great teams, especially during the 1970's as the Big Red Machine was rolling along.  But let's check it to see what it may reveal.

 

Nolan's seasons & run support are on the left, and Ryan's are on the right:

 

Year	Team Runs / Game in Nolan's Starts	Reds Total Run Support - All Games	Year	Team Runs / Game in Ryan's Starts	Angels / Astros Total Run Support - All Games
1967	2.9	3.7	1972	2.9	2.9
1968	4.5	4.3	1973	3.6	3.9
1969	4.7	4.9	1974	4.1	3.8
1970	4.6	4.8	1975	3.9	3.9
1971	3.4	3.6	1976	2.8	3.4
1972	4.7	4.6	1977	4.0	4.2
1973*	0.5	4.6	1978	4.0	4.3
1974*	n/a	4.8	1979	5.1	5.3
1975	5.2	5.2	1980	4.0	3.9
1976	4.7	5.3	1981	3.6	3.6
Totals	4.2	4.6	Totals	3.8	3.9

*Nolan injured for all or most of season

 

Overall, Nolan actually received about 9% less run support in his starts than the Reds supplied in a typical game during this time frame, so he was a little unlucky (at least vs. the other pitchers on his teams) in that regard.  However, even given that, it was still about 10% higher than what Ryan received.  Generally speaking, Nolan was provided with greater run support than Ryan was (which, again, wouldn't surprise anyone).

 

How about defense?  We can look at each team's "Defensive Efficiency" data, which is defined at baseball-reference.com as:

 

"Percentage of balls in play converted into outs.  This is an estimate based on team defensive and pitching stats.  We utilize two estimates of plays made. One using innings pitched, strikeouts, double plays and outfield assists. And the other with batters faced, strikeouts, hits allowed, walks allowed, hbp, and .71 * errors committed (avg percent of errors that result in an ROE).  Total plays available are plays made + hits allowed - home runs + error committed estimate."

 

Here's how those team defensive measures line up for our 2 pitchers.  Again, Nolan (Reds) is on the left, and Ryan (Angels through 1979 and then Astros for 1980-1981) on the right:

 

Year	DER for Nolan's Teams	Rank in League	Year	DER for Ryan's Teams	Rank in League
1967	.707	5	1972	.727	3
1968	.704	3	1973	.699	6
1969	.700	7	1974	.698	7
1970	.706	3	1975	.692	10
1971	.727	1	1976	.707	5
1972	.719	2	1977	.698	7
1973	.718	2	1978	.707	7
1974	.714	3	1979	.695	9
1975	.717	2	1980	.703	4
1976	.708	5	1981	.721	1
Avg.	.712	3.3	Avg.	.705	5.9

 

Generally speaking, I think you'd have to conclude that Nolan received greater defensive support than Ryan did over these time frames.  The Reds were basically a top-3 National League defense by this measure 7 of the 10 years, while the Angels were generally in the lower half of the American League (the Astros do  rate as a pretty good defense for those last 2 Ryan seasons).

 

Again, probably not surprising.  The Reds had a pretty good defense by reputation, with multi-Gold Glove winners in Dave Concepcion, Joe Morgan, and Cesar Geronimo, not to mention a great defensive catcher in Johnny Bench.  I believe the only Gold Glovers Ryan played with during this time were Angels outfielders Ken Berry (1972) and Rick Miller (1978), although he did have Bobby Grich as his second baseman for a couple of seasons.  Still, I think you'd have to say that Nolan had both greater offensive and defensive support than Ryan did. 

 

Index of Self Destructive Acts

 

I'll let Bill James explain this one:

 

[Excerpt from New Bill James New Historical Abstract, Page 904]

 

"The Index of Self-Destructive Acts" is the total number of hit batsmen, wild pitches, balks, and error by a pitcher, per 9 innings.

 

The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is kind of a garbage stat, because it puts together separate and unrelated acts into a single category.  I like it, nonetheless, because it makes useful information out of four statistical categories which are, by themselves, too small to sustain any conclusions.

 

[End of excerpt]

 

This stat is pertinent in this discussion because Nolan Ryan has one of the highest (i.e., worst) figures you'll find.  Bill presented this under the Orel Hershiser entry in the Historical Abstract, and as such he was only providing figures for pitchers who made his top 100 pitcher ranking.  He didn't provide figures for all pitchers in history.  Nolan Ryan had the second highest(worst)  figure (behind David Cone) among the top 100 pitchers (Robin Roberts had the lowest/best).  

 

Which got me to thinking....could I come up with a more comprehensive listing of the best and worst results in that category?  I took a crack at it (I used Fangraphs.com for these numbers as they were easier to obtain for these categories):

 

For this pull, I decided to limit it to pitchers from the Expansion Era (1961-present) with 1,500 or more innings.  That pull yielded 373 names.  Here are the highest (worst) figures:

 

Pitchers from 1961 to present, 1500+ innings pitched, highest ISDA

 (ISDA = Index of Self Destructive Acts)

 

Name	IP	HBP	WP	BK	E	Total	ISDA
Jamey Wright	2,036.2	155	87	13	27	282	1.246
A.J. Burnett	2,731.1	143	161	6	39	349	1.150
Chan Ho Park	1,993.0	138	75	14	20	247	1.115
Darryl Kile	2,165.1	117	98	19	27	261	1.085
Jorge De La Rosa	1,522.2	58	96	11	17	182	1.076
Blue Moon Odom	1,509.0	36	92	3	41	172	1.026
Vicente Padilla	1,571.1	109	37	12	17	175	1.002
Tim Wakefield	3,226.1	186	134	8	30	358	.999
Edinson Volquez	1,546.1	76	77	6	11	170	.990
Charlie Hough	3,801.0	174	179	42	22	417	.987
David Cone	2,898.2	106	149	32	28	315	.978
Bob Walk	1,666.0	40	80	33	26	179	.967
Jake Arrieta	1,513.2	58	76	1	27	162	.964
Tony Cloninger	1,767.2	33	119	9	26	187	.952
Miguel Batista	1,956.1	79	102	6	19	206	.948
Felix Hernandez	2,729.2	105	156	7	19	287	.946
John Lackey	2,840.1	133	125	12	28	298	.944
Ubaldo Jimenez	1,870.0	78	93	6	19	196	.943
Don Cardwell	1,528.1	82	54	6	18	160	.942
Nolan Ryan	5,386.0	158	278	33	90	559	.934

 

And here are the 20 lowest (best) figures given the same criteria:

 

Pitchers from 1961 to present, 1500+ innings pitched, lowest ISDA

 (ISDA = Index of Self Destructive Acts)

 

Name	IP	HBP	WP	BK	E	Total	ISDA
Bill Monbouquette	1,540.2	15	14	4	6	39	.228
Kirk Rueter	1,918.0	25	24	0	7	56	.263
Randy Jones	1,933.0	18	19	6	18	61	.284
Gary Nolan	1,674.2	14	26	10	3	53	.285
Greg Swindell	2,233.1	21	30	12	9	72	.290
Luis Tiant	3,486.1	49	27	4	35	115	.297
Scott McGregor	2,140.2	26	28	12	9	75	.315
Ron Guidry	2,392.0	13	56	8	8	85	.320
Mike Cuellar	2,804.0	12	52	6	30	100	.321
Rick Wise	3,127.0	44	49	8	13	114	.328
Paul Splittorff	2,554.2	34	40	5	15	94	.331
Catfish Hunter	3,449.1	49	49	7	23	128	.334
Tom Glavine	4,413.1	66	65	7	26	164	.334
Ross Grimsley	2,039.1	15	40	9	13	77	.340
John Tudor	1,797.0	29	18	10	11	68	.341
Burt Hooton	2,652.0	20	64	4	16	104	.353
Carl Morton	1,648.2	27	18	9	11	65	.355
Denny McLain	1,886.0	26	27	9	13	75	.358
Claude Osteen	3,400.1	44	61	6	25	136	.360
John Candelaria	2,525.2	37	28	26	11	102	.364

 

As you look through those names, I think it's very clear that there tend to be two very different kinds of pitchers on each listing.   [Insert your own adjective for each group here.....]

 

So, Nolan and Ryan are clearly on opposite ends of this spectrum.  If we limit to just the time slice comparison, here's how the two match up (and I'm going to add fielding percentage into the mix):

 

(ISDA = Index of Self Destructive Acts):

Name	Slice	GS	Innings	Hit Batsmen	Wild Pitches	Balks	Errors by Pitcher	Fielding Pct.	ISDA
G. Nolan	1967-1976	234	1,617	14	26	9	2	.993	0.28
N. Ryan	1972-1981	344	2,564	60	128	10	54	.884	0.88

 

As you can see, aside from balks, the 2 pitchers are on totally different planets in this area, even adjusting  for the fact that Ryan's data covers a lot more innings.  In short, Gary Nolan was much more in control in this area and made a lot fewer mistakes.  Ryan was more erratic and mistake-prone.

 

The fielding is particularly interesting to me.  Obviously, there's more to fielding one's position (even at pitcher) than avoiding errors.  After all, many of the pitchers with great glove reputations, such as Greg Maddux, Bob Gibson, and Jim Kaat, committed quite a few errors over the course of their careers.  However, the difference between Nolan and Ryan is pretty striking. 

 

Although Nolan didn't win any Gold Gloves, he has one of the most pristine fielding records of any pitcher in history.  His .990 career fielding percentage is the 4th highest ever among pitchers with more than 1,000 innings pitched:

 

Highest Fielding Percentages, Pitchers, 1,000 or More Innings Pitched:

 

Name	Fielding Percentage	G	GS	Inn	PO	A	E
Jeff Francis	.996	254	217	1,291	49	205	1
Shaun Marcum	.991	195	167	1,030	88	135	2
Don Mossi	.990	460	165	1,548	69	239	3
Gary Nolan	.990	250	247	1,674	95	189	3
Kyle Gibson	.989	205	200	1,154	111	151	3
Rick Rhoden	.989	413	380	2,593	173	386	6
Kirk Rueter	.988	340	336	1,918	135	439	7
Zack Greinke	.988	500	459	2,939	292	424	9
Woodie Fryman	.988	625	322	2,411	97	389	6
Lon Warneke	.988	445	343	2,782	126	538	8

 

Here's the flip side - pitchers with the lowest fielding percentages (this does exclude pitchers pre-1900 as there were so many more errors committed in the early years.  Also, I reverted to career numbers for simplicity).

 

Lowest Fielding Percentages, Pitchers, 1,000 or More Innings Pitched  (1900-2020):

Name	Fielding Percentage	G	GS	Inn	PO	A	E
Allen Sothoron	.871	264	194	1,582	66	312	56
Doc Newton	.876	177	139	1,200	41	333	53
Ray Sadecki	.878	563	328	2,500	62	312	52
Matt Young	.878	333	163	1,189	50	159	29
Ed Halicki	.880	192	157	1,063	71	120	26
Hank Aguirre	.885	447	149	1,375	48	167	28
Wayne Twitchell	.885	282	133	1,063	46	108	20
Dan Schatzeder	.886	504	121	1,317	60	149	27
Matt Garza	.892