Al Davis kicked it up a notch this week, what a demented jerk.

He is more hands on with the Rangers.

In terms of ownership, the Pirates are on better ground now. The Mariners certainly spend more, though there is a similar theme of being pushy while picking a bad GM, and Houston has consistently been a better franchise under McLane than Texas under Hicks. Most of our optimism involves trades that cut costs and prospect development, not anything that Hicks has done.

As far as the Stars, they’re a total cash cow now, and they are in decent shape because his former GM did a very responsible job in an irresponsible time. The best thing that you can really say there is that he’s a nonfactor (not that that isn’t something).

Read everyone else’s comments after I posted.

he’s a breath of fresh air because he’s level headed and patient. I have no idea what his plan is, so I couldn’t draw any conclusions on it, which I think is pretty much what you’re saying. And even if I did know his entire plan, I’m just not very informed when it comes to pitching, so I wouldn’t feel very equipped to comment on it, other than on how the results turned out.

…needs to take a page from the John Henry playbook and just stay out of the media. The whole “unfortunately we won the Stanley Cup” comment is just one in a long, long line of stupid BS the man spews.

the one constant has been the GM, and coaches, apparently knew dick about pitching. He is grasping for someone, anyone who seems to know something about it.

Was he about the 20th best pitcher of all time? Probably.

One of the 5-10 best ever? No way.

He, unlike the vast majority of fastballers in history, was able to pitch exceptionally well after the age of 37. Nolan Ryan thanks Tom House for this, in fact saying that House was the biggest influence on his later career. Don’t look too far into that connection because there are a myriad of reasons why Nolan Ryan fans won’t like what the connection implies.

But, let’s consider those stats that make him one of “the greatest pitchers ever.” Yes, he had a great K/9IP ratio. Right behind Pedro, Kerry Wood and Randy Johnson and right ahead of Sandy Koufax, Arthur Rhodes and others. What makes him so much greater than these guys is the fact that he was able to do it for such a long time. The fact that he didn’t lose steam on his fastball and was able to continue to dominate late in his career is almost miraculous.

Now, for some other stats. He had a slightly better than league average ERA (ERA+ of 111). His best season in this regard was his age 24 season where his ERA+ was 194. That’s great. His second best was his 142 ERA+ at the age of 40. That’s mind boggling. Despite those great seasons, he also had eight complete seasons, spread over his career, where his ERA was below league average. He also walked a lot of batters…about 1000 more walks over his career than any other pitcher in the history of baseball. He hit a lot of batters (often led the league) and threw a lot of wild pitches (also often led the league). Those qualities are fairly common for primary fastball pitchers, but the reality is that most pitchers aren’t primary fastball pitchers. Nolan Ryan was good, really good, but that equates to probably being the 30th best pitcher to ever play. It would be very hard to argue him into the top 20, and I don’t think any serious fan would do so. Yet, people still act like he was one of the best five or so pitchers ever, and some have ever called him the greatest. That’s simply historical revisionism, and thus he is easily one of the most overrated pitchers of all time. In reality, he’s very comparable (better but comparable) to Bert Blyleven, who’s not in the Hall of Fame simply because Ryan played for better teams (more wins) and because a dominating fastball is much more exciting than a dominating curve.

Now, how does his “pitching philosophy” translate to the Rangers young pitchers? There are three or maybe four pitchers in the entire Rangers system that could be said to even have the potential to have Ryan’s fastball…and that’s probably a stretch. None of them will have that type of fastball when they are 45, much less when they are 35. That’s the way human bodies normally work. Nolan Ryan pitched a ton of innings (as you mentioned). There are some starts where he might have thrown over 200 pitches. He pitched 352 innings in 1974. There are very few pitchers who have pitched more than 350 innings in a season in the modern era. There are especially few pitchers who are primary fastballers who have done it. That’s more of a knuckleballers forte. Yep, Nolan Ryan wasn’t “coddled” as he claims that the Rangers pitchers have been. But, on a normal pitcher (i.e. 99% of them since the beginning of the game), the type of workload that Ryan put up with, the number of pitches he would throw in a game and the number of innings he would pitch in a season do not translate into “toughness” or “wins,” but almost always translate into serious injuries, sometimes career threatening.

He had a really good FIP. 2.96 for his career. That’s pretty ridiculous. 12 full seasons of a sub-3 FIP. (And quit e a few just a hair above 3). His career FIP is better than all those guys you mentioned according to fangraphs.

Not saying he was better, just saying he definitely belongs in the discussion.