Best ever

[vgp100]

I'd say these guys are the best. Of course, I'm going with my all-time favorite--Schmidt. Some pretty good players here, though.

[GDavis]

I'm going with No-Ry

[Gantry]

Great Poll!!  I'm going with Clemens - 6 Cy Youngs, 300 (or soon to be) wins, 6 ERA titles, 4000 K's and a 1.56 World Series ERA.  Say what you want about him as a person, but he's the best pitcher of the last 20 years...

[The Murph]

I would definitely have to go with the Ryan Express......Most K's, no-no's.  Probably can still throw in the low 90s.

[Gantry]

Clemens vs Ryan is a pretty good debate, but I think 6 Cy Youngs versus 0 gives Roger the nod.  Ryan may have been the most dominating pitcher ever, but wasn't as consistent as The Rocket...

[vgp100]

Yeah, but Ryan never plaved for the Yankees.
I give him a lot of credit for his 40 something beating of Robin Ventura too. I loved that.
Roger is gaining a lot for his longevity too. I remember his last year in Boston--I figured he was finished. Three Cy Youngs after that--amazing.

ps I hate the yankees

[Gantry]

I don't think anybody ever pitched (or fought) better in their forties than Nolan Ryan.   He was the man!

That beating of Ventura was a classic - headlock followed with a few shots to the noggin...

[sucka free]

What no McGwire on this list?  Terrible.

Roger Clemens is without a doubt the greatest RBI player ever.  The debate between him and Nolan Ryan isn't even all that close.  Here's why...

1.   20 win seasons
    Clemens 6 /  Ryan 2

2.  Cy youngs
    Clemens 6 / Ryan 0 (this makes the case right here!)

3.  MVP's
    Clemens 1  /  Ryan 0

[jcbball86]

nolan ryan is better, heres why:

1. most strikeouts ever (5714, clemens is about 4000)

2. 7 no-hitters (1 when he was 44)

3. played for 27 years (its quite a feat) on 4 teams

4. 324 wins, clemens is still under 300

5. Ryan had 6 seasons with over 300 strikeouts, clemens is still working on his first.

6. Clemens got many wins because he was on Boston and the Yankees, both of which have been the best teams in the AL for years.

7. Ryan had 61 shutouts, Clemens is about 45

8. Ryan had 222 complete games, clemens is about 116 (I say about because I'm not adding this year to his numbers)

Stats are more important than awards.

[MarquisEXB]

nolan ryan is better, heres why:

Stats are more important than awards.

I don't agree with this statement. When Nolan Ryan doesn't win a Cy Young it means nobody thought he was ever the best pitcher during his career. It may not have anything to do with what team he played on, because in his 27 seasons, he only led the league in ERA twice, and one was during a strike shortened season. Ryan also led the league in walks 8 times.

On the other hand Rocket's contemporaries thought so much of him, not only was he voted best pitcher 6 times, but he won an MVP award. Rocket's awards were justified because he led the league in ERA 6 times. I think the MVP award speaks volumes. Not many pitchers have won an MVP award.

Nolan Ryan had great career numbers due to his unequalled longevity. His career strike out record and 7 no hitters will probably not be broken in my lifetime. However rememeber that these are single game events (no-nos) or lifetime durability achievements (career Ks). He could never put these numbers together for a long stretch of time (a season), hence the lack of awards.

Believe me if I were starting a team, I would love to have a 25 year old Nolan Ryan (or maybe a 30 or 35 or 40 year old), but I'd much rather have a 25 year old (or 30 or 35) year old Roger Clemens.

Mike

[ericdavisfan]

I think this is a good debate question, but it's hard to compare the two, because their careers overlapped, but I wouldn't call them contemporaries.  By the time Clemens broke in, Ryan was already mid/late 30's.  Honestly, there's no reason why Nolan Ryan didn't win the AL Cy Young Award in 1973 and 1974, because he posted 21 and 22 wins respectively.  However, he took 16 losses each year which hurt him.  Jim Palmer won in 73 with a 22-9 record, but with about 230 LESS strikeouts.  Catfish Hunter won in 74 with a 25-12 record, but about 230 LESS strikeouts!  Nolan always pitched late into the game, which meant, win or lose, he was going to get the decision.  He lost a lot of games by 1 run because his teams didn't produce.  Ryan could have just as easily won either of those two years.  Meanwhile, his ERA was always in the 3's or below except for his last season.  As far as toughness, I think that Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens are two of the toughest competitors ever to play the game.  I still love watching highlights of the Robin Ventura beating and of Clemens heaving the bat at Mike Piazza.

[vgp100]

I always thought that innings pitched was such an important statistic for pitchers. Good pitchers will go late into their games, no matter how shitty their teams are.
They both averaged similar innings pitched / year, though. Nolan had around 200 per season and Roger has around 214 per season.
They are both horses with incredible careers (even though I friggin hate Clemens)
I am amazed that Nolan could throw his heat at his age. He is a freak of nature. But being a freak doesn't make you better. I'm giving the nod to the ass, Clemens because he's got rings. He's 3-0 in the WS and 1.56 ERA.

[ericdavisfan]

Nolan Ryan did have 3 or 4 seasons where he pitched more than 300 innings, I don't think that Rocket has done that before.  I understand that the move from a r man to 5 man rotation has something to with that, but Ryan's season average of innings pitched is somewhat skewed by those years at the end of his career where he fought injury. There were only a handful of seasons where he pitched less than 200 innings and one of those was the strike of 81.  They're both great, that much is for certain

[RockRaines4life]

Clemens over Ryan, when you look at their careers in context its not even close.  According to www.baseball-reference.com Clemens had a career ERA of 3.15, while the league ERA during his career (adjusted for home parks) was 4.49.  Ryan posted a similar 3.19 ERA but while the league (again, park adjusted) was 3.57.  This big difference probably comes from the fact that Clemens pitched much of his career in hitter friendly Fenway, while Ryan spent nine seasons in the Astrodome, one of the best pitchers parks ever.  Also, Ryan had the benefit of pitching in the 70s and retiring before the longball explosion of the late 90s.  Clemens has had to deal with all those juiced up power hitters.      
    As far as the innings pitched argument, through last year (age 39) Clemens had 4067 innings pitched.  Through age 39 Ryan had 4116 innings, not a big difference.  The strikeout discrepancy is much smaller too than it seems.  Ryan struck out 1.08 batters per 9 innings, while Clemens Ked 0.96.  Granted, Clemens rate should drop as he pitches into his 40s, but his wins, shutouts, and total strikeouts will approach Ryan's levels.  While Ryan does have the incredible 7 no-hitters, Clemens also had some good single game accomplishments, namely his two 20 K games.  
    All told, Clemens is probably one of the best 4 or 5 pitchers ever due to the fact that he put up the numbers he did in such a hitters era.  While I wouldn't rank Ryan quite that high, he is no doubt among the top tier of pitchers all time.  What amazed me most was that Clemens and Ryan each only made 8 all-star teams!      

[ericdavisfan]

I wouldn"t say that the 1970's was a time where the ball was dead.  Guys like Gorman Thomas, Jim Rice and George Foster were pounding 40-50 homers.  The typical HR leader was close to, if not over 40 homers during the 70's.  I agree that the 80's saw a drop where the typical leader was in the 30's, but Clemens pitched through half of that decade too.  I wouldn't place the home run binge until Brady Anderson hit 50 in 1996.  That means Roger pitched more than half of his career before the boom, too.  Granted, he's posted some fine ERA's since, but I don't think one can assume that Nolan Ryan faced watered down pitching (he faced the likes of Reggie Jackson, Jim Rice, Rod Carew, Frank Robinson, Carl Yastrzemski).  Also, look at how many fewer teams there were back then.  How many more times did Nolan Ryan face the same team per season as opposed to Clemens.  Plus, 4-man rotations were the norm back then.  It's hard to compare the two, because baseball is so different now than it was back then.  However, I can't think of 5 pitchers better than Nolan Ryan or Roger Clemens.  I think they'd both be in my top 5 all-time list

1. Ryan
2. Koufax
3. Gibson
4. Clemens
5. Paige

[vgp100]

I think it's kind of strange that nobody voted for Mr. October, Cal Ripken, or Tony Gwynn. Gywnn was the bset pure hitter I've ever seen.

[RockRaines4life]

Excluding the part of their careers that overlap ('84-'93) leaves us with Ryan pitching from '66-'83, and Clemens from '94-'02.  During those 17 years of Ryan's career, the league he pitched in (NL 66-71 and 80-83, AL 72-79) averaged 8.65 runs per game.  The 9 years Clemens has pitched since Ryan retired have seen 10.18 runs/game in the AL.  That 1.53 runs a game is a difference of 0.77 points of ERA.  So relative to Ryan, during the years in which their careers did not overlap Clemens was facing an environment in which the average ERA was 0.77 higher than during the time Ryan was pitching (not taking into account home ballparks, which was another advantage for Nolan).  Even though Clemens ERA is virtually identical to Ryan's, its much better when viewed in the context of the time period.

[sucka free]

Rockraines....well done!!!  Excellent research.  Much props!

jcbball...your statement that stats are more important than awards is totally and completely absurd.  It goes against the very meaning of why people play and watch sports.  Players play for an award, called the world series trophy.  They do not play for stats.  Awards are the best thing to acquire in baseball.  They are a reconigintion from your peers as well as from the league.   Ryan was never once, in 27 seasons, reconizied by his peers as being the best.  No argument can be made that over rides this fact considering clemens won the Cy 6 times.  I can go off for hours on this, but lets jsut say we disagree.

vgp.  Cal could be a decent call.  He was  a hell of a shortstop of best amoung his peers for many years.  As for pure hitter, I'll pick Bonds.  

[ericdavisfan]

I am not trying to take away from Roger Clemens' 6 Cy Young Awards.  However, if awards mean more than lifetime statistics, then Dale Murphy should be listed amongst the greatest RBI players.  In 1982 and 1983, he won consecutive MVP awards, and probably should have won another in 1987.  While I don't think that Murphy is the better than anyone on that list, it does continue the debate of lifetime stats over awards.

[ericdavisfan]

I would also throw this argument out there...Willie Hernandez (Tigers closer in RBI) also won the MVP just 2 years prior to Clemens!

I believe Jim Rice and Don Baylor were MVP's once also