Nolan Ryan’s incredible career should earn him the title of “best pitcher ever”

When you’ve been around for as long as Major League Baseball has been, greats, hall of famers, legends, and even-once-in-a-million’s bless the game with their presence from time to time. However, there’s one tier even above that, reserved for those who you’ll never see again in your lifetime or even 10 lifetimes. Guys like Ruth, Mays, Aaron, Bonds, Williams, Koufax. Well there’s one name you should be including on that list, and that’s Nolan Ryan.

No baseball player has ever inspired awe like Nolan Ryan has. He not only set the mold for pitchers for the last 24 years, he changed pitching completely forever. He blazed a trail with his fastball, and he did it longer than anyone could dream of. Not only that, he was as tough as they come and he showed it every time he took the mound.

There has been no career longer than Nolan Ryan’s record 27 seasons spanning four different decades and unimaginable changes in the game of baseball. Only Cap Anson can match Ryan’s career length, and if that name doesn’t sound too familiar that’s because he played between 1871 and 1897.

Nolan Ryan impressed and captivated MLB fans wherever he went, from the very young age of 19 all the way until he was 46. Batters feared him and he used that to fuel his dominance on the mound for four different franchises in both leagues. He’s the greatest pitcher to never win a Cy Young award. He set the bar in so many areas, set records that will never be broken, and carried out feats we’ll only get to read about in the history books and will likely never see again.

Only four pitchers have ever thrown more innings than Nolan’s astounding total of 5,386, and only one of those men pitched after 1932. In fact, only one pitcher has started more games in the history of baseball than Nolan Ryan, who started 773 times, and that was Cy Young with 815 starts. As impressive as Ryan’s longevity was, including having more than 30 starts in each of 16 seasons, the quality of the starts he had throughout his long career are also unmatched.

Nolan Ryan is 15^th in fielding independent pitching (FIP) since the Expansion era with a 2.97. In 14 of his 27 seasons he had a FIP under 3.0. Despite his high walk rate (which combined with his longevity to set a record in career walks allowed), Ryan kept his FIP down by limiting home runs and striking out a high percentage of batters. He has a career average of 0.54 home runs per nine innings. That’s good for 19^th best since Expansion.

Of course, Nolan Ryan has the record that will certainly remain intact forever: he struck out 5,714 batters through his career. The next highest is Randy Johnson with 4,875 strikeouts. No one has more 10 strikeout games than Nolan Ryan, who has done that 215 times. Nolan also has the most strikeouts in a season since 1900 with 383, a record that will likely stand the test of time as well.

Just to put his strikeout numbers in perspective, right now Chris Sale is in the midst of an incredible season, and on pace for about 317 strikeouts if he stays healthy and starts 32 games. Sale would need 13 more repeat seasons of his current pace in order to catch Ryan’s record, which means Chris would have to pitch at this extraordinary level until he’s 41. All I have to say is: good luck.

Not only was his FIP incredible, Ryan was also the best ever at limiting base hits, with a career hits per nine rate of 6.6 and a career batting average against of .204. Only six pitchers in the history of baseball have more shutouts than Ryan’s 61, tied with Tom Seaver, both of whom are the only two of the top eight that began their careers after World War II.

Ryan faced 1,417 different batters during his career and only 232 of them didn’t strikeout at least once. He faced 678 of those batters at least 10 times each and only 43 of them struck out less than two times. 62.8% of those 678 batters struck out at least 5 times when facing Ryan over the course of their careers.

Nolan Ryan’s most impressive record by far is his seven no-hitters, a historic feat no one will ever come close to. You can watch the full length game of his 7th no-hitter on the MLBClassics page on YouTube. He also took a no-hitter into the eighth inning 23 different times. Below is a list of his no-hitters and the stat line from each game.

May 15, 1973 vs Royals: 3-0

9 IP, 0 H, 3 BB, 12 SO

May 15, 1973 vs Tigers: 6-0

9 IP, 0 H, 4 BB 17 SO

September 28, 1974 vs Twins: 6-0

9 IP, 0 H, 8 BB, 15 SO

June 1, 1975 vs Orioles: 1-0

9 IP, 0 H, 4 BB, 9 SO

September 26, 1981 vs Dodgers: 5-0

9 IP, 0 H, 3 BB, 11 SO

June 11, 1990 vs Athletics: 5-0

9 IP, 0 H, 2 BB, 14 SO, 130 pitches – 86 strikes

May 1, 1991 vs Blue Jays: 3-0

9 IP, 0 H, 2 BB, 16 SO, 122 pitches – 83 strikes

As impressive as Nolan Ryan was in terms of statistics and accomplishments, nothing compares to the one thing that really made Ryan famous: his blazing fastball. He was, for all intents and purposes, the “trailblazer” when it came to fastball velocity and a pitcher’s desire to throw as hard as they can. Nobody has and nobody ever will throw as hard as Nolan Ryan did for as long as he did. He regularly touched the upper 90’s throughout his career, even after he turned 40, a feat that was even more incredible in the 1980s.

Every pitch Ryan threw for the Houston Astros between 1980 and 1988 were clocked and record for type, velocity and results, 27,918 in total. 17,309 of those pitches were fastballs and not a single one was clocked below 90mph, according to Nolan Ryan in his book, Nolan Ryan’s Pitcher’s Bible.

Info c/o Nolan Ryan’s Pitcher’s Bible

Ryan also featured two secondary pitches to complement his fastball, a curveball that broke twelve to six and a circle change up. He mixed the curveball in 23 percent of the time and the changeup 14 percent, meaning the fastball was used 62 percent of the time. His secondary pitches were even more versatile in terms of velocity, as his change-up could range from anywhere between 71 and 89mph with an average of 82.3mph, while his curveball ranged between 66mph and 83mph with an average of 78.3. He loved to mix in a first pitch curve, doing that 24 percent of the time with Houston while at the same time keeping it out of play 97 percent of the time.

The Guinness Book World Records has Nolan Ryan’s record for hardest fastball at 100.9mph. However, when they measured the velocity the pitches were recorded at 10 feet from the plate, whereas today the pitches are recorded for velocity directly out of the hand. “Therefore, Nolan Ryan's pitching speed as measured today would be at minimum 106 mph and could have been as high as 110 mph,” according to efastball.com, who extensively researched the science behind the radar used to track Ryan’s pitches.

The website goes on to say that, in order to get that calculation they took the original reading of 100.9 at 10 feet, plus 9mph drop per 50 feet based off the average decrease in fastball speed over the distance to the mound. That would equal 7.2mph added to 100.9 to get 108.1 mph. However, that calculation was done pre-Statcast, which measured from about 50 feet, whereas now Statcast reads the velocity directly out of the pitcher’s hand, so it would likely read even higher if he were pitching in today’s era. Efastball.com went on to talk about how Aroldis Chapman’s pitch at 105.1mph is the fastest in the record books but probably wasn’t truly faster than Ryan’s record setting pitch. That’s because when the two pitches crossed the plate, Chapman’s pitch was moving at an estimated 96.5mph while Nolan Ryan’s was still moving at a staggering 99.1mph.

Ryan’s arm eventually gave out during his final season in 1993 with the Texas Rangers. He was 46 when he tore his ulnar collateral ligament on September 22^nd, 1993. He threw one last pitch in order to test his arm before coming out of the game. That pitch was clocked at 98mph, astounding considering that he didn’t have a functioning elbow. That’s a testament to the superhuman-like abilities Nolan had. Another impressive feat that came with his retirement: Ryan was the last player from the 1960’s era to retire, inching out Carlton Fisk by three months.

Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images

Nolan Ryan powered his way through a career full of achievements and memorable moments while also creating new standards to which pitchers compare and model themselves after, even to this day. What makes it even more impressive is how he did it in a time when pitchers weren’t handled carefully whatsoever as they are today, and at a time when baseball didn’t have hardly any of the research and science behind it that it has had the last two decades. For example, when Ryan would get blisters from pitching, he would put pickle juice on them to try to toughen the skin up to prevent future blisters. He even recommended Noah Syndergaard do the same earlier this season when he had a blister issue.

Throughout his career Ryan left a larger-than-life impression with fans, opposing teams, and anyone who saw what he did on a weekly basis. He created an atmosphere around him that marked him as one of the toughest competitors in professional sports history while also having one of the longest careers in all of sports. He dominated the opposition while setting records and carrying out feats no one will ever be able to duplicate. During his career Nolan Ryan did as much for the game of baseball as any pitcher could ever do, and for that he should indeed be considered the best pitcher of all time.

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Ron Wolschleger is a Contributing Writer for Beyond the Box Score as well as Bless You Boys. You can follow him on Twitter at @FIPmyWHIP.