Picking one starting pitcher is probably the toughest thing to do on any all-time team. There are any number of guys who could fit that bill. One of the prereqs on my all-time team is to be in the Hall of Fame. For this selection, I needed to do some more filtering; this guy must have won 300 games. That cut down the list really quick, to 24 possible selections to be exact. I know the whole “wins” stat is a thing of the past as a matter of importance when it comes to looking at starters, kind of like the opposite in the way “pitch counts” are viewed. Yet, 511 wins for a starting pitcher?!?! Talking about records that will never be broken, nobody will EVER even sniff Cy Young’s record; in fact, there may not be another 300 game winner. Out of active players today, Verlander is closest at 241… how many more years must he pitch to get there? He’s already 39 years old… Honestly, if I said there will never be another 300 game winner in the MLB ever, I may be correct.
OK, back to my selection, which of course is spoiled by the title; my guy is Nolan Ryan. I thought about Maddux for sure; love him. My guy would have been Clemens, but he’s not in the Hall, so… how about an all time MLB team with guys NOT in the Hall? Yeah, I like that idea. I think of guys like Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax, neither made 300 wins, but either would be absolutely great choices at this position. But yeah, it’s the Ryan Express for me.
324 career wins for starters. How about 5,714 career strikeouts? Speaking about records that will never be broken. He may own another as well: 7 career no hitters for Nolan; Koufax is 2nd on that list with 4. Forget about the no hitters, did you know this dude had 12 one hitters… and 18 two hitters!!! Simply amazing. Nolan brought the gas on the mound. Loved seeing him rear back and throw 100 MPH, and back then, it wasn’t so common… neither was pitching late into games, exceeding pitch counts of 100. Forget about 100, Ryan threw 200 pitches in a game. Yes, back on June 14, 1974, Nolan threw 235!!! He got a no decision, but still struck out 19. Insane, something else we will never, ever see again. He was a workhorse, not only throwing hard in a single game for a crazy amount of pitches, but throwing like this for so many years… 27 year career! Again, how many times we will see this again? And I’m not even going to mention how he’d kick your ass if you rushed the mound… oh, I just did; sorry Robin Ventura.
Yeah, I’m totally fine with Nolan Ryan taking the bump, and yeah, just because we have a great defense, doesn’t mean we’ll have to use it. Just go ahead and strike everybody out Nolan. And no need for a closer on my all-time team, let alone a bullpen phone. Nolan is going the distance; he is the only guy I need. And if he’s getting hit, that’s OK; we’ll outscore the other team. Running the 9 guys on the field that I have selected will get a whole lot of Ws, but sure, just like the best teams, looking across 162, they will lose some. But man, give me this team in a 7 game series… OK, I guess I would need more pitchers in that scenario… but 1 game, although anything can happen, I like my odds. Thank for following along as I selected my all-time MLB team.
Leave a Reply