Most overrated baseball player of all time

Why should we just Ryan any differently than someone putting together a pitching staff? In determining the best pitchers ever, why shouldn't we hold them to the standard of how well they keep runners off the basepaths and keep teams from scoring? Why shouldn't we hold them to the standard of how consistently dominant they were? And you have to put the high number of strikeouts in context, in comparison to the walks he gave up. For every two batters he sent packing with a 98-mph fastball, he sent one to first base with a 99-mph fastball that couldn't find the plate. He leads the most walks given up in career by a greater percentage than he does strikeouts (for everyone strikeout Clemens had entering this year, Ryan had 1.26 K's. For every one walk that Steve Carlton had, Ryan has 1.52).

And since when are declining years more important than peak years? Maddux has contextually better career stats than Ryan and had a much better peak. That is called "being better than him."

 

.305 BA, .935 OPS, .534 Slg., .401 OBP

 

.305 ba, .927 ops, .534 slg, .393 obp, 16 rbi, 6 hrs, 19 runs scored

for the final three stats, let's go averages
jeter --  115 games -- .409 rbi per game, .139 hr per game, .704 runs per game
arod -- 31 games -- .516 rbi per game, .194 hr per game, .613 runs per game

 

Ryan was a very good pitcher for a quarter century, with a few great seasons mixed in.  Playing on bad teams cost him wins, but probably not as many as people think.  That, along with his 5714 strikeouts, 7 no-hitters, etc. make him a very legitimate HOFer.  But he's not even close to being the best pitcher of all time.

 

and if i need a yard for a touchdown, i know who i'm going to pick

 

Point is, urbuddy, Maddux, with an awesome career, is not finishing it strongly. Ryan, with an awesome career, finished strongly. And in the ERA difference, Ryan gave up one extra earned run every five complete games. Ryan struck out three more people than Maddux (through 2005) on average every game.

 

Yeah. I'm sure those guys behind Ryan are ticked they didn't get very many chances in the field when he threw his seven no-hitters.

I'm sure teams felt better knowing they had a ground ball machine taking the mound instead of a guy who could strike out 15 and intimidate the hell out of the opposition.

I'm sure teams were thrilled when Greg said his day was done after six innings as opposed to watching Ryan go out there and average 7.5 innings per start. In 1990. At age 43.

 

yeah, those 80-yard TD runs in the fourth quarter with the lions down by 20 really paid off. woo-hoo, barry!

 

I'm going to bow out of this thread now.  It's been fun debating with you, but I think I've said enough on the subject.  I only wish I had clarified at the beginning that overrated does not mean "sucks" - just not as good as most people think he was.

 

I agree that opting for Peete over Kramer (and worse, Ware over Kramer) retarded the Lions.

 

yeah, you're not really that good if you're in the top 1/2 percent of all major league pitchers who ever pitched?

hoenstly, it's probably lower than that... how many pitchers have ever pitched in the majors and you admitted he's in the top 20 all time. you're in the top 20 all time of something like that, it's pretty tough to be 'overrated'

 

And them boys just ain't been right since.