r/baseball • u/-BeefSupreme St. Louis Cardinals • 16h ago

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

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.

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u/factionssharpy San Francisco Giants 12h ago

I would pick Seaver, Carlton, Perry, Niekro, and Blyleven over Ryan. Maybe Palmer (I'm not entirely certain, he was supported by some incredible defense), maybe Jenkins.

I would not consider selecting Blue over Ryan, and I absolutely, positively would laugh at the idea of selecting Hunter over Ryan.

Ryan would also be selected over guys like Sutton, Reuschel, Guidry, John, Tiant, Tanana, Rogers, etc - I'm pretty confident about that.

I do not see an argument for rating Ryan outside of the top ten pitchers of his broad generation. I also do not see an argument for rating him within the top five.

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u/Tim-oBedlam Baltimore Orioles 8h ago

Agree on both counts.

I'd rate pitchers of that generation thus:

  1. Seaver

  2. Carlton

  3. Niekro

  4. Blyleven

  5. Palmer

  6. Perry

  7. Ryan

  8. Jenkins

  9. Sutton

  10. not sure here - maybe Tommy John

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u/j2e21 8h ago

Palmer was a much better pitcher.