From: spira@panix.com (Greg "Sarcasm Is A Way Of Life" Spira)
Subject: Re: Henderson vs. Ryan
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 23:57:44 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: A Slightly Warmer Place Than Dave Kirsch's Winter Wonderland

In <texdude.703304521@camelot> texdude@camelot.bradley.edu (Philip Allen) writes:

>In <1992Apr14.181447.3261@panix.com> spira@panix.com (Greg "Sarcasm Is A Way Of Life" Spira) writes:

>>Strikeouts are nice to have, and they're certainly a sign of a dominating
>>pitcher, but a strikeout doesn't make a pitcher any better than his ERA.  His
>>5000+ strikouts are more of a descriptive stat than a measure of how good a
>>pitcher has been.  The 7 no-hitters are quite remarkable, but they're only
>>7 games.  They don't really tell you how valuable Ryan has been to his team
>>over the years.  

>Stolen bases are merely a descriptive stat for batters.  They don't measure
>how good a player has been either.  

Well, they're not that worthless; a batter on first who steals second is a
progressive move, while a avg. strikeout isn't worth any more than the average
other out.  But stolen bases aren't worth all that much, so they're not
all that important in judging Henderson's value.

>>Last year was a bad year for Rickey, the exception that proves how great
>>Rickey is.  He posted "only" a .400 OBP, and he was "only" the 2nd best
>>leadoff batter in the league, not the best.  And this was a lousy year
>>for him.  

>Last year wasn't lousy for Henderson.  It was lousy compared to 1990, but
>not lousy compared to his career.  True, his batting average was
>considerably lower than usual.  But his HR, RBI, BB, and R stayed fairly
>close to his career averages.  His SB was lower than average, but it has
>been decreasing over the past four or five years.  Believe it or not, I
>think that Rickey is past his prime.

Well, its possible.  He should be past his prime.  Of course, he's better
in his past his prime stage than 99% of players are in their prime.

>>Rickey's baserunning is almost incidental to his value.

>As is Ryan's strikeouts.

Okay.

>>What's impressive is
>>his lifetime .403 OBP and .440 SLG..  When you take into account his ballparks
>>and his era, Henderson comes out as one of the real all time greats, and
>>probably the best overall player of the 1980s (though Mike Schmidt has a good
>>argument also).  

>What I find impressive about Ryan is his career opponents' BA and SLG.  

Well, they are impressive.  In fact, as Tony the Tiger used to say,     
theeeeyy'rre greeeat.  But his greatness here was partly offset by his
having some of the worst control of any regular major league starter
ever, especially pre-80s.

>And, although Henderson may be the greatest player in the 80's (I just
>don't feel like arguing this one), Ryan has been dominating for twice as
>long.

Well, Ryan has certainly been around much longer, and he has to get credit
for that.  But as to whether he's really been all that dominating, that's
another story.

>>When you look at Ryan's lifetime ERA, his lifetime W-L (career W-Ls are       
>>somewhat meaningful, unlike single year W-L), etc., its pretty clear that
>>Ryan just hasn't helped his teams all that much.  His biggest negative, of
>>course, has been his lousy control - he's walked more people than any other
>>pitcher in history, and its not close.  Check out his career OBP allowed, and
>>compare it to that allowed by pitchers like Seaver, or even Bert Blyleven.
>>Ryan is way behind. 

>Ryan played for bad teams.  It wasn't just him.  The records of the teams
>he played on were usually much worse than his personal W-L record.  And I
>agree that Ryan's main problem is control, but he makes up for the strikes
>by not allowing hits.  As for ERA, while his wasn't sparkling, he led the
>league in ERA in 1981 and 1987.

Well, we can measure this with Wins Above Team, which measures a pitcher's
won-loss record relative to the pitcher's teams' w-l records. The formula
is Pitcher Decisions X ([Pitcher Pct. - Team Pct.]/[2 - 2 X Team Pct.]) when
a pitchers' W-L percentage is higher than his teams'.  When a pitchers'
W-L percentage is lower than his teams', the last clause of the equation is
changed to [2 X Team pct.]    

Anyway, through 1990, look at how Ryan comes out in comparison to his
contemporaries.  These are recent pitcher in the top 100 of Wins Above
Team as of the end of 1989.

6  Seaver 59.4
14 Marichal 39.1
18 P. Niekro 36.9  
25 S. Carlton 34.9
35 Jim Palmer 30.9
40 Jenkins 29.8
51 Candelaria 26.1
60 Perry 24.2
65 John 23.2
78 Blyleven 21.6
88 Blue 21.0
?? Ryan 17.5

Its possible Ryan has lept into the top 100 in this in the last two years,
but he's still way behind some of his contemporaries. 

The records of Ryan's teams, btw - 

1968 73-89
1969 100-62
1970 83-79
1971 83-79
1972 75-80
1973 79-83
1974 68-94
1975 72-89
1976 76-86
1977 74-88
1978 87-75
1979 88-74
1980 93-70
1981 61-49
1982 77-85
1983 85-77
1984 80-82
1985 83-79
1986 96-66
1987 76-86
1988 82-80
1989 83-79

As you can see, Ryan's teams were over .500 more often than they were under    
.500, and he was only on a couple of bad teams.  Ryan's career W-L        
percentage is not (relatively)unimpressive because he played for bad teams; its
unimpressive because he didn't pitch great.  He was good, but never great.
The problem was always walks - here are his walks per 9 innings for his career.

1969 5.4
1970 6.6
1971 6.9
1972 5.0
1973 4.5
1974 5.5
1975 6.0
1976 5.8
1977 6.1
1978 5.7
1979 4.6
1980 3.8
1981 4.1
1982 3.9
1983 4.6
1984 3.4
1985 3.7
1986 4.1
1987 3.7
1988 3.6
1989 3.7
1990 3.3
1991 3.8

>Also, when determining who is the best player, stats are not the only
>important factor.  Ryan was the team-leader for several teams, including
>the Rangers now.

Well, I don't really believe that team leaders are of much significance in
MLB, as you could probably guess.  But even among the "team leaders are
important" crowd, its usually assumed that team leaders are everyday players.
I've never really heard of pitchers being team leaders.  And if you ask some
of the Rangers if Ryan's a team leader, I think you'd get a "no comment" in
return.  The various TV interviews I've seen with players such as Sierra
indicate to me that they resent his presence because it takes attention away
from the rest of the team.

  Actually, I'd be interested to hear what major-league
>players would say to this question:  Who has been more dominating in their
>career - Henderson or Ryan?

I wouldn't.  What would make major league players qualified to figure this
out?  

>Speaking of that, I recall an article in USA Today a few years back that
>had a poll of major league players over who was the pitcher they least
>liked to face.  Over 80% (I could be wrong) said Ryan was their least
>favorite. 

Yeah, I could understand that.  But being a pitcher who scares hitters is
not the same thing as being a succesful pitcher.  Hitters generally don't
want to face pitchers who throw really hard (Bobby Witt, e.g.) or really
weird (Sid Fernandez, e.g.).  But that's a measure of how uncomfortable
the hitter is against the pitcher, not how good the pitcher is.

Greg  

-- 
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