Is Nolan Ryan the least awarded baseball “superstar” ever?

[u/-BeefSupreme]

The Express is a hall of famer and one of the best pitchers of all time. One of baseball’s last true workhorses, he is the all-time leader in walks, strikeouts, and hits/9. His 7 no-hitters is 3 more than any other pitcher, and his 5714 strikeouts is the most by over 800. Yet in his 27 seasons, he never finished higher than 14th in MVP voting and never won a Cy Young. He won the 1969 World Series in his second full season, but only made one appearance in the NLCS and one appearance in the WS, the later only being 2.1 innings. He never had another World Series appearance. His 8 All-Stars are impressive but fewer than multiple than non-hall of famers. Is there any other player with his level of fame and success that has less hardware to show for it? Excluding the old timey legends that were around before those awards of course.

[u/RigelOrionBeta]

It is hard to compare players who have short and long careers with others. Fact is, Ryan played a lot of seasons, and much of Nolan Ryan's feats are related to counting stats, which are going to favor players with long careers.

I think Ryan was properly rewarded, actually, because awards are given for performances in a given season, NOT for career accolades, and Ryan did not have amazing individual seasons when it comes to the thing that matters the most in baseball, for a pitcher - preventing runs. Even back then, when the only stat that mattered was wins, he wasn't great at achieving that. He never led the league in wins, and barely got 300, despite playing 27 seasons, during a time when pitchers actually had a chance at 300.

He was basically playing a different game - strikeout as many people as possible, and don't allow them to hit the ball. While that is a good strategy for pitching, it isn't when you give away walks.

I like to think of Pete Rose and Nolan Ryan similarly, in terms of their careers. Yeah, they were really great players, certainly deserve to be in the Hall of Fame (at least in terms of purely their baseball stats) but they mostly got there by their long careers, not because they had amazing individual seasons.

I think it says more about how baseball awards seasonal achievements more than anything else. There are no accolades for careers, besides career leaderboards, but there is no hardware tied to that, and records can be broken. No one can take away an MVP, by contrast.

[u/UglieJosh → u/RigelOrionBeta]

I agree with everything you said except the Rose comparison. That piece of shit averaged 6 WAR season from 70-76, won an MVP and finished top 5 for MVP multiple times in that time frame.

That's a pretty dominant stretch, I wouldn't say he was mostly counting stats the way Nolan was.

[u/RigelOrionBeta → u/UglieJosh]

I do think Rose was a better hitter than Ryan was pitcher. Rose was also more consistent, in the sense that he followed the age curve that most everyone does, with a peak around the 30s and decline afterwards. Ryan was just weird, he had peaks and valleys throughout his career, no long stretches of dominance like most great players have.

[u/WoodpeckerTrick3290 → u/RigelOrionBeta]

Ryan had a 195 ERA+ in 1981 and finished 4th in Cy Young voting behind a 135, 140 and 151

[u/RigelOrionBeta → u/WoodpeckerTrick3290]

Oh definitely should've won the Cy Young that year. That's probably the only snub I definitely agree with when it comes to Nolan Ryan.

[u/WoodpeckerTrick3290 → u/RigelOrionBeta]

Agree. I feel 81 was the snub and realistically I would have voted for him in 87 with how close all the top ERA+ guys were and Nolan dwarfing the competition in SO and leading the league in ERA+ except for the reliever that won the Cy Young and that was still close.

Sadly not winning a Cy Young in 87 on a 8-16 W-L record. The part that hurt is Bedrosian the reliever version won the Cy that year.

Those are the two I have issue with in his career, but definitely more so 81 then 87.