We are pleased to welcome Kevin Hunter to the SOS staff. Kevin will be covering the Los Angeles Angels.  

Kevin is a freelance writer and public relations consultant who was born and raised in Southern California. In a career that spans more than 25 years, Hunter has written sports and features as a staff and freelance writer for numerous local and national print and online publications including the Orange County Register, the Los Angeles Times, L.A. Weekly, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, Bleacher Report, Breakaway, Charisma and Sports Spectrum magazines.

Since 2000 Hunter has worked in public relations as a writer, consultant, and pitch man and media relations person in the video game, consumer electronics industries and the non-profit sector.

Hunter’s background with the Angels goes all the way back to his childhood when they were the California Angels. He grew up watching Angels players ranging from Nolan Ryan, Don Baylor and Reggie Jackson, to Lyman Bostock, Tori Novello, and Gary DiSarcina to the current team. Hunter is also the author of a 2003 cover story on Garret Anderson titled “Guarded Angel” for Sports Spectrum magazine.

In his spare time Hunter enjoys running, cycling, reading, spending too much time at a local coffeehouse, and spending plenty of time with his wife of 10 years and their five-year-old son.    

We received an interesting email recently from “Plunk”, one of our members that asks:

“From 1957 to 2007, which MLB pitcher has allowed two hits or less in the most games?”

We talked this one over before jumping on baseball-reference.com and couldn’t agree on an answer.  

Second on the list is Jim Palmer with 17. First is Nolan Ryan with 37.

37?   That’s just ridiculous.

Seven no-hitters and 30 one-hit or two-hit games gives Nolan a 20 game lead over the next best player in that category.

It’s time to find out just how good Nolan really was.

Nolan Ryan is as close to a Texas legend as one man can be. He came here in 1980 at the age of 33 and won 157 games as an Astro and a Ranger. Eleven times in that span he won at least ten games, three times he won over 15. He threw three no-hitters and struck out 2,805 batters while averaging almost seven K’s per game. That and all those Cy Young awards…

But wait…Nolan never won a Cy Young. In fact, Nolan won 20 games only twice in his illustrious 27 year career. Sure he won 324 games, but he also lost 292. He was an All-Star in only 8 of his 27 seasons and never got higher than 14th in the MVP voting, but he has an excellent career ERA of 3.19. He led the league in strikeouts 11 times and is the all time leader in the category with 5,714, which is almost 1,000 more than any other pitcher in MLB history. He ranks first all-time in wild pitches, which would make sense considering his career length, but then again, he led the league six times in wild pitches. He’s the all time leader in walks (by about 1,000), and he led the league eight times in that category. The guy started 773 games and of those, completed 222. You just don’t see that anymore. Greg Maddux has 109 complete games, Clemens, 118, and Roger has pitched 24 years. Nolan is also the all-time leader in fewest hits allowed per 9 innings. But shouldn’t Nolan Ryan be higher than 511th in the rankings of career W-L%? There is no way that he should be below Tim Wakefield and Hideo Nomo (who are tied for 481st on the list).

A 22 year old Ryan played in the ‘69 World Series as a member of the champion New York Mets and registered a save in the series but never again appeared in a World Championship. This leads me to the first assumption. “Nolan never played for good teams.”

Nolan played for teams that were over .500 in 14 of his 27 years. However, only seven times did his team finish ten games over .500.

The best team he ever played for (as far as regular season standings) were those ’69 Mets that won 100 games. Only twice more did his team win 90+ games. But conversely, he only played for six teams that ended up ten games below .500.

His four team’s combined record over his career was 2,171-2,143. Not good, not bad. A lot like Ryan’s win-loss total.

So where does that leave us? On one hand, seven no hitters and 30 one or two hitters shows his utter dominance, (I’ve said for years that Ryan would have been the greatest closer in history) but why isn’t Nolan talked about seriously in the “greatest pitcher of all time” conversation?

When I am asked about the greatest of all-time, I mention Mathewson, Walter Johnson, Koufax, Clemens and Alexander. I never think of Nolan. Is it the losses? Is it the walks? Toby Harrah once said that “Nolan would load the bases with walks and then strike out three guys in a row.” Is that the most effective pitcher?

What are your thoughts?