It's that time of the year where the Hall of Fame discussions heat up and plenty of banter flies back and forth over a player's cause for induction. If you listen, you'll hear cases made for and against players based on wins and losses, Pitcher X being a winner and Pitcher Y simply not being one. You might figure out that X and Y refer to Jack Morris and Bert Blyleven. Arguments are made, calling Morris a winner based on “bulldog mentality” or “wanting the ball” or “pitching to the score”, or “you just have to watch him pitch/trust the award voters who saw him play”, or having a Sam Elliott mustache, etc.
In 1987, Nolan Ryan led the National League in ERA (2.67), strikeouts (270), adjusted ERA+ (142), H/9 (6.5), K/9 (11.5), and K/BB (3.10). All of this would likely lead one to believe that Nolan Ryan had a pretty dominant year, and in fact, his adjusted ERA+ of 142 was the second highest of his career after the strike-shortened 1981 in which he put up a monstrous 194 in twenty-one starts.
If anyone is unfamiliar with ERA+, it is a measure of pitcher's ERA compared to league average, and adjusted for the pitcher's ballpark. 100 is league average, meaning here, that Nolan Ryan in 1987 had an ERA 42% better than the league average pitcher.
And why do I bring up Nolan Ryan? He's already in the Hall of Fame, and no one questions his candidacy. He's widely seen as one of the dominant, motor-oil-in-the-veins, bulldog types, who won't let anyone, including Robin Ventura, stand in his way of winning. I wasn't old enough at the time to follow the baseball writers, but I wore out enough thrift store copies of This Year in Baseball 1990 to know the kind of reputation Ryan had.
In 1987, despite being the most unhittable pitcher in the National League, Nolan Ryan went 8-16. Isn't he a winner?
First, I decided to look at the game logs, courtesy of baseball-reference.com.
April:
7 IP, 3 R, W
6 IP, 3 R, L
4.2 IP, 1 R, L
8 IP, 0 R, ND
May:
6.2 IP, 1 R, W
6 IP, 2 R, ND
7 IP, 2 R, ND
6 IP, 2 R, L
6.2 IP, 3 R, L
6 IP, 2 R, ND
June
2 IP, 5 R, L
7 IP, 0 R, W
7.2 IP, 1 R, W
5 IP, 3 R, L
6 IP, 4 R, L
5 IP, 8 R, L
July:
7 IP, 2 R, L
7 IP, 1 R, L
2.1 IP, 1 R, L
5 IP, 2 R, L
5.1 IP, 1 R, L
August:
7 IP, 3 R, ND
6 IP, 1 R, ND
6.1 IP, 4 R, ND
7 IP, 0 R, W
5.1 IP, 1 R, ND
6 IP, 2 R, L
September/October:
7 IP, 0 R, W
8 IP, 2 R, W
6.2 IP, 1 R, W
9 IP, 1 R, ND
6 IP, 3 R, ND
7 IP, 4 R, L
7 IP, 2 R, L
Ryan lost several games where he gave up only one or two runs. July sticks out the most to me. Ryan went from the middle of June to the middle of August without a win, despite pitching very well.
Following this, I looked at the offensive support he received. The Astros offense, on the whole 1987 season, put up 4.00 runs per game on average, second fewest in the National League. In Nolan Ryan starts, the Astros put up 3.28 runs per game. The team's leader in OPS+ was a 35 year old Alan Ashby, who put up a 117 mark in 125 games at catcher. In general, the Astros offense was fairly uninspiring and didn't provide Nolan Ryan with much run support. In contrast, Rick Sutcliffe, who finished 2nd in Cy Young Voting that year to Philadelphia closer Steve Bedrosian, received 5.44 runs per game from the Cubs offense.
Let's give pitching performance the careful examination it deserves. Pitcher performance is too complex to trust to wins and losses, a system that is perhaps a better measure of a team's offense than its pitching performances. It's unfortunate that a pitcher's Hall of Fame credentials and deserved recognition can be hurt (or even enhanced) by the performance of his teammates.
