It took a while for Circle of Greats voters to get past the limitations of Nolan Ryan’s somewhat un-nuanced approach to pitching. But ultimately his undeniable talent for throwing pitches really hard and his extreme durability were enough to tie Pete Rose in a high-comment-generating scheduled voting round, and then to defeat Rose in a closely contested, head-to-head runoff. Ryan becomes the 34th player inducted into the High Heat Stats Circle of Greats. More on Ryan, and the voting, after the jump (oh, and here, courtesy of Katz’s Deli, is the sandwich missing in this post’s title: Katz’s Sandwich .
Most Regular Season Strikeouts in a Calendar Month (1916-2013):
1. 87, by Nolan Ryan (June, 1977)
2. 85, by Nolan Ryan (August, 1974)
3. 83, by Nolan Ryan (July, 1972)
T4. 76, by Nolan Ryan (September, 1972), Sandy Koufax (May, 1965) and Sam McDowell (May, 1968)
T7. 75, Nolan Ryan (August, 1973)
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Measured by career pitching WAR (Wins Above Replacement, baseball-reference version) for the franchise, Nolan Ryan has been the second most valuable pitcher in the history of the Angels franchise, the fourth-most valuable pitcher in the history of the Astros franchise and the sixth-most valuable pitcher in the history of the Senators/Rangers franchise.
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Most Strikeouts in a Season (since the mound-to-plate distance was set at 60’6″)
1. Nolan Ryan (1973) 383
2. Sandy Koufax (1965) 382
3. Randy Johnson (2001) 372
4. Nolan Ryan (1974) 367
5. Randy Johnson (1999) 364
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Ryan’s ERA in the strike-shortened season of 1981 was 1.69. He had 149 innings pitched that season, more than enough to qualify for, and win, the ERA title during a season in which about a third of the scheduled games were lost to that year’s labor dispute. The lowest single season ERAs since division play began in 1969, min. 20 starts:
1. Dwight Gooden (1985) 1.53
2. Greg Maddux (1994) 1.56
3. Greg Maddux (1995) 1.63
4. Nolan Ryan (1981) 1.69
5. Pedro Martinez (2000) 1.742
6. Ron Guidry (1978) 1.743
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This last one is likely familiar to most HHS readers, but worth mentioning here anyway:
Most Career Regular Season Strikeouts, MLB history
1. Nolan Ryan 5,714
2. Randy Johnson 4,875
3. Roger Clemens 4,672
4. Steve Carlton 4,136
5. Bert Blyleven 3,701
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I’ve recently been listing the inducted members of the Circle of Greats (the “red list” at the end of each of these results posts) in order of regular season games played in the major leagues. But for the pitchers, I had been failing to include the small number of games in which they played but did not pitch. This oversight rarely resulted missing more than a few games for each inductee, but in a couple of cases, such as Tom Glavine’s, there were over 20 non-pitching games played in a career, enough to actually change the order of the list a bit. As of this week’s post, the list below is now updated to include all games played by the pitchers, including games in which they played but did not pitch. The order of the list has been corrected to reflect the revised numbers.
The full spreadsheet showing this round’s original vote tally is here: COG 1941 Round Vote Tally.
The spreadsheet showing the runoff vote tally is here: COG 1941 Runoff Vote Tally.
And the summary spreadsheet showing all the regular round vote totals (not including runoff and redemption round votes) is here: COG Vote Summary , with a summary of the raw vote totals on Sheet 1 and a summary of the percentage totals on Sheet 2.
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The Circle of Greats membership thus far (currently being displayed in order of major league regular season games played):
Rickey Henderson, 3,081 games
Cal Ripken, Jr., 3,001 games
Barry Bonds, 2,986 games
Robin Yount, 2,856 games
Reggie Jackson, 2,820 games
George Brett, 2,707 games
Paul Molitor, 2,683 games
Joe Morgan, 2,649 games
Ozzie Smith, 2,573 games
Tim Raines, 2,502 games
Carlton Fisk, 2,499 games
Rod Carew, 2,469 games
Wade Boggs, 2,440 games
Tony Gwynn, 2,440 games
Mike Schmidt, 2,404 games
Frank Thomas, 2,322 games
Gary Carter, 2,295 games
Alan Trammell, 2,293 games
Barry Larkin, 2,180 games
Johnny Bench, 2,158 games
Jeff Bagwell, 2,150 games
Larry Walker, 1,988 games
Mike Piazza, 1,912 games
Nolan Ryan, 807 games
Greg Maddux, 759 games
Steve Carlton, 745 games
Roger Clemens, 709 games
Tom Glavine, 709 games
Bert Blyleven, 699 games
Tom Seaver, 677 games
Fergie Jenkins, 665 games
Randy Johnson, 619 games
Curt Schilling, 571 games
Mike Mussina, 537 games
