Walter Johnson or Nolan Ryan

Someone asked me the quuestion who was better and I started thinking about it and here is what I came up with.

Because Ryan played 27 years to Johnsons 21 if you factor Ryan’s stats at 21 years (for averaging) you can get a better picture. Johnson averaged 5 more wins a year and 1 less loss with both Ryan and Johnson playing 38 games. Ryan started on average 5 more games a year as Jonson worked in relief. Johnson averaged 25 complete games per year to Ryan’s 11 as well as Johnson throwing an average of 5 shutouts to Ryan’s 3. Interestingly, Johnson has 34 career saves and Ryan has 3. Innings per year Johnson, 282 Ryan 256 and Ryan gave up fewer hits 3923 to Johnson 4913. Johnson was actually a little wilder than Ryan believe it or not, Johnson on average hit 10 batters to Ryan’s 8 not a huge difference. Of course strike outs are no contest, even if you average it out over 21 years that comes to 162 per year for Johnson and 272 for Ryan. Ryan did walk more, 133 a year to Jonson’s 65 per year average. Another interesting statistic is ERA+, this is ERA adjusted to take into account the ball parks the pitcher pitched in, Jonson 1.47 and Ryan 1.11 regular ERA, Johnson 2.17 and Ryan 3.19. In the end they both lost close to the same number of games, Jonson 279 and Ryan 292.

Take some things into consideration, pitching rotation, Intentional walks and decades. Johnson was truly dominating for his time; hitters had little chance when he was on the mound. In his prime, bring Johnson to the ballpark against today’s hitters the story would probably change. On the other hand Take Ryan in his prime and put him in Johnson’s time or today and the hitters would simply be overmatched. While Johnson brought brute force and was considered a beast in his time standing 6 foot 1 inch tall and 200 pounds today he would be average in size. Ryan at 6 foot 2 inch tall and 220 pounds would not only have mastered Johnson in his time but did master his own time even against the slightly larger players.

If you must choose then Ryan is the winner now and then.

A tale once told by an umpire was Walter Johnson pitching with two strikes on a young batter who turned and walked towards the dugout. The umpire reminded the player that he had a strike left to which the player replied, "You can call it, I didn't see the first two!"