There will never be another Nolan Ryan. Let’s get that part out of the way now.
Yes, that means the Milwaukee Brewers’ dazzling missile-launcher, Jacob Misiorowski. Yes, that also means literally everybody else.
Does The Miz fire fastballs that conjure up memories of Ryan’s fastball, back in another time and place? It is OK to say that he does. But there is so much more about the great Nolan Ryan that can’t ever be matched.
The legend. The aura. The trail of strikeouts, more than 5,700 K’s long. The seven no-hitters. Seven. The 27 seasons of rocket launching. Twenty-seven. Who is doing that again — any of it?
So just understand that. When The Miz holds the baseball in his hands and blows up every velo board in our land, it can make you think about these things. We will no doubt be thinking about them again Friday night, when he starts against the Braves in Atlanta.
It is the ultimate compliment to say anyone inspires the words, young Nolan Ryan. But let’s be careful.
We can’t be lightly throwing around phrases like “a young Nolan Ryan.” So now let’s introduce you to a man who would not use that phrase. But maybe not for the reasons you would think.
His name is Ryan. Nolan Ryan.
“Would I compare myself to him? No, I wouldn’t,” Ryan told The Athletic this week, filled with admiration for the 24-year-old smoke machine in Milwaukee, a guy he is following with great curiosity. “It’ll be interesting to see his career develop. The game needs more pitchers like that. I truly believe that. And it’s gonna be fun to watch.”
The legend spoke to me by phone from his cattle ranch in Texas. He is 79 years old. He hasn’t thrown a pitch in 33 years. He is as soft-spoken as ever. But I’ll readily admit it. I was nervous just to talk to him, before those 28 magical minutes.
Why? Because he’s Nolan Ryan. And even though I didn’t have to worry that he might whoosh any 98 mph heat by my chin, I also knew this: He isn’t like anyone else.
How did The Miz get this good, this fast?
Derek VanRiper and Eno Sarris
Ryan has only watched The Miz on TV. And it wasn’t as if he made a point to tune in when Misiorowski spun one of the great pitching gems of modern times last Friday, against the Phillies: 15 strikeouts, one hit, no runs, no walks, no three-ball counts, only 27 batters faced in nine innings, only 95 pitches, all to finish off the first complete game of his professional life.
Then there was the F1 velocity: 58 pitches at 100 mph or faster … 44 pitches at 101 or faster … two strikeouts at 104-plus … six strikeouts at 103-plus — one of them in the ninth inning.
Ryan didn’t get to watch any of that. But has the living legend heard all about that game? Oh, yes, he has. Does he understand why Planet Baseball can’t stop talking about that game? Of course.
“That’s a very unique game,” Ryan said simply, content to leave it at that — except there’s one more thing.
When he says he wouldn’t compare himself to The Miz, here’s what Nolan Ryan really and sincerely means: That kid is so much better than he was at that age.
“To look at my career, and the point where he is in his career today, he’s much further down the road now than I was,” Ryan said.
We should probably mention that, from Ryan’s age-24 season on, there were so many astonishing feats still to come. Feats like 5,300 more strikeouts … and all seven of his no-hitters … and 23 more seasons of doing stuff we will never see again.
But strike-throwing is special, at any age. And especially at 104.5 miles per hour. The 24-year-old edition of Nolan Ryan couldn’t do it, averaging just under seven walks per nine innings that year. So he appreciates it when he sees it.
He was asked what he’s thought when he has had a chance to watch Misiorowski pitch.
“My observation of him is, I thought he had the best arm I’ve seen in baseball since I don’t know since when,” Ryan said. “I really think he has a gift there.”
When a superhero with the stature of Ryan says you have a gift, you should be framing that quote on your living-room wall — in type so large and colors so bright they hurt your eyes. But here’s the amazing part: Ryan didn’t stop there.
“It’s a gift that he has, and it’s special,” he said. “No doubt about it. Because you just don’t see many arms like it.”
But before we unload any more wheelbarrows full of praise from the ranch, we need to discuss that other Miz-versus-Nolan elephant in this room, when we ask …
So who threw harder?
More than half a century ago, in 1974, the Angels asked some engineers from Rockwell International to aim a primitive radar gun at Nolan Ryan’s fastball. Who knew what crazy number would flash before their eyes? Then there it was — 100.8. … in the ninth inning. It was incomprehensible, at least in that naïve moment.
Many years later, in the must-see 2016 documentary, “Fastball,” modern science recalculated that reading — to attempt to adjust to the way velocity is measured now by Statcast.* The result was an even more incomprehensible number, in this or any age:
108.5!
(*Where velocity is measured now: Out of the pitcher’s hand. Where Ryan’s velocity was measured that night in ’74: When the ball reached home plate. Those two things are not the same.)
So who out there is down with that 108.5 guestimate? You’re allowed to say yes. Just understand what it means if you do say yes.
In 1974, Rockwell International engineers clocked a Nolan Ryan pitch at 100.8 mph. That reading has been recalculated to a mind-boggling 108.5 mph to account for how velocity is measured now. (Jeff Goode / Toronto Star via Getty Images)
We now have the scientific tools to measure, with remarkable precision, how hard men like Misiorowski throw a baseball. Those tools from 1974 would not be confused with these tools.
So feel free to believe that Ryan was once powering fastballs up there at over 108 mph. But if you do, you clearly do not believe (as Statcast does) that this pitch last Friday from Miz was even close to the hardest four-seamer ever thrown by a starting pitcher.
That was pure 104.5 mph electricity to Kyle Schwarber. Totally real. And 100 percent spectacular.
Later in that same inning, The Miz would punch out Bryce Harper on 104.1 premium unleaded. A few days later, I asked Harper about the two fastballs he saw in that at-bat at 104-plus. He laughed.
“Schwarbs saw 105, and I saw 104 twice,” he said. “So it’s just different, because you don’t see starters like that. But I mean, he’s got like 7-(foot)-6 extension, which makes him tough, obviously, whenever you’re that tall and then you have another level that you can get to, because of your extension. It’s just different seeing a starter have that kind of velo and hold that velo for that many innings — and still have it, at 103 in the ninth.”
Different. Yeah, let’s go with that. Except we can’t ever forget that once upon a time, there was that Nolan Ryan dude. He was also different. That’s why he has spent a lifetime being described (at least by people not named Bob Feller) as the hardest-throwing starter who ever walked this earth.
So how could we not run this riveting topic past Ryan himself? I filled him in on The Miz’s supersonic Statcast readings. Then the conversation went like this:
THE ATHLETIC: “So of course, he’s inspired this fun conversation about whether he’s the hardest throwing starting pitcher since you — or possibly whether he’s even the hardest throwing starting pitcher ever. How would you weigh in on that?”
RYAN: “Well, I really don’t think you can compare, (or) start saying this is the hardest thrower that ever pitched in the game … because we don’t know, you know? So people can speculate all they want. He’s definitely the hardest thrower in the game today. That’s for sure.”
Jacob Misiorowski celebrates his one-hit, 15-strikeout complete game against the Phillies. (John Fisher / Getty Images)
I told Ryan I would never anoint anyone as the hardest thrower ever without his OK. But I asked if he would have a problem if other people laid that label on The Miz. Ryan never raised his voice, but I was not dragging him into this ring of our little circus.
“I don’t worry about that,” he said. “That means nothing to me. It’s pure speculation on how hard I threw and how hard he throws. And (same with) Sandy Koufax or Bob Feller or whomever. … I certainly wouldn’t say that I’m the hardest thrower that ever pitched, because I’ve seen people I’ve thought threw as hard as I’ve seen. I thought Billy Wagner threw as hard as I’d seen.”
But what about that famous radar gun reading in 1974? I helpfully reminded him it was measured at 100.8 mph at the time. I added one more helpful reminder — that the scientists have said that would convert to 108.5 by today’s standards. Ryan still wasn’t buying any of it.
“I have no way to speculate on how accurate that was,” he said of that 1974 lab experiment. “I know this — that they shot a beam down in front of home plate, and the ball had to pass through it. Now what percentage of the (baseball) did they get — because you don’t throw it to the center of the plate? And that being the ninth inning, that particular pitch — I’m telling you this: I threw harder pitches than I did against that hitter in the ninth inning.”
That was as far down that trail as Ryan wanted to go. So maybe you think he just opened the door to guess that maybe he actually threw harder than 108 — what, like 110? Or 112? He’s obviously not stopping you from believing whatever you want to believe. But here’s what I came away with:
Ryan isn’t sure what to believe — so he doesn’t truly believe any of it.
He also isn’t buying into the inflated strikeout rates of modern pitchers. Not even with Miz, who is averaging a sport-leading 13.6 strikeouts per nine innings. Ryan averaged about 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings in his day. Through Wednesday, 22 qualifying starters were averaging 9.5 or better this season.
Not surprisingly, Ryan heaps a lot of that responsibility onto the hitters, who “have no discipline,” he said, pointedly — and don’t even seem to mind.
“The hitters today,” he sneered, “they’ll strike out three times. Then, the fourth time up, they’ll hit a home run, and they act like they did something special.”
It was vintage Ryan. I laughed out loud. He never even changed inflection, as if to convey that this wasn’t some kind of pointed opinion, or any kind of joke. It was just a fact.
But you know what else is a fact? That we’re never going to stop …
Comparing the generations
Nolan Ryan, pictured in the 1980s with the Astros, had That Aura — and everybody knew it. (Focus on Sport / Getty Images)
The year was 1983. Or at least that’s what Don Mattingly remembers. He’s the interim manager of the Phillies now. But he was a rookie first baseman for the Yankees then.
His team had just traveled to the Dominican Republic for a spring training game against the Astros. Pitching for Houston that day: The one and only Nolan Ryan. Mattingly knew what he was up against.
“So I’m like: He is not throwing a fastball by me,” Mattingly said this week. “Just my mindset is like, he will not throw a fastball by me.”
And how’d that go?
Mattingly chuckled. About how you’d expect. But he did put a ball in play, he remembered:
“I think I popped up a breaking ball or something,” he said, with another laugh.
But what he was really trying to say was there was never a day when Nolan Ryan took the mound that he didn’t have That Aura — and everybody knew it.
So that feeling the whole ballpark gets now, on Misiorowski Day, how similar is that? Who better to ask than a man who once batted against Ryan and just managed against Miz.
Outside of that spring training game, Mattingly said, “I didn’t really see Nolan in his prime, where it was exploding out of his hand. … So it’s hard for me to compare the two. But I think just the velo … and what it does to guys, that was Nolan. And this guy’s the same. You’ve got to gear up.
“You know, it’s a pitch that starts in one place, you think it’s going to be in the zone, and it’s out of the zone. So that type of ball just explodes on you. And then anything breaking is like a whole ‘nother deal. You can’t really sit there and think about the slider. You’ve got to get geared (for the heat).”
So that feeling that rattles the bones of every hitter in the yard — it’s easy to compare that. But where do we go from there?
The numbers? Nobody’s numbers look like Ryan’s numbers. Nineteen starts with at least 10 strikeouts but no more than one hit allowed? How about 26 starts with 15 K’s or more? We just spent a week doing somersaults over Miz’s first start with 15 K’s.
Advantage: Ryan.
But if we’re going to talk numbers that make your eyeballs bulge, Misiorowski can hurl these at you:
He has already thrown nearly 500 pitches this year at 100-plus mph. … And he has a ridiculous 0.17 ERA over his last eight starts, in which … he has faced 192 hitters … and just two of them scored … and only one of them scored an earned run … and precisely two of them hit any kind of extra-base hit (both doubles) … and 80 of them have struck out, which computes to nearly three times as many as the 28 who have reached base on either a hit or a walk.
Even Ryan never had an eight-start stretch with an ERA, WHIP or strikeout rate that good. On the other hand, as Ryan didn’t hesitate to point out, he’s pretty sure he used to average 150 pitches a start — and knows for a fact he once threw more than 230 one day in Boston.
Ryan vs. Miz: Their best 8-start spans
| RYAN* | MIZ** | |
|---|---|---|
|
ERA |
0.47 |
0.17 |
|
OPP AVG |
.172 |
.105 |
|
IP |
57 1/3 |
54 1/3 |
|
K |
63 |
80 |
|
HITS |
34 |
19 |
|
WHIP |
0.94 |
0.46 |
|
K/9 IP |
9.89 |
13.25 |
(*May 1 – June 17, 1984; **May 1 – June 12, 2026)
So how do we compare these two dominators from two very different generations? We’re walking a wobbly high wire when we even try.
“It’s just a different culture,” Harper said. “Those guys were great in their time, and our guys are great in our time. I think Nolan’s fastball would play at this point, obviously. And Bob Gibson’s fastball would play here. Mickey Mantle’s swing would play here, right?
“So I don’t like the debate of who’s better, or who’s this or that. I don’t think it’s fair to any generation to say that our generation is better or that generation is better. … I don’t think you can debate that. I mean, you guys are going to, obviously. And I know people will. But I don’t think you should.”
He smiled because he understands there is no way to stop us from doing that. Connecting the dots from this generation to those generations from yesteryear is part of the myth and magic of baseball.
That’s why the myth of prime-time Nolan Ryan, 40 and 50 years back in the rear-view mirror, still shines so bright. But the adrenaline rush of watching The Miz pump 103.5 mph in the ninth shines even brighter, because we’re watching it right now, in real time.
So if you want to drop a young Nolan Ryan label on this sport’s most electrifying young arm, it sounds like Ryan wouldn’t fight you. Just understand there’s a difference between saying Miz is a young Nolan Ryan and saying he’s the next Nolan Ryan.
To be the next Nolan Ryan, there needs to be so much more coming. Obviously, not 5,000 more strikeouts or seven more no-hitters. Who’s doing that again? But 10 … 15 … 20 years of greatness — of never-ending swinging and missing, and oohing and aahing? That’s what it would take to even knock on Ryan’s door.
Let’s just say he would be as surprised as anyone if that’s what Misiorowski has ahead of him.
“There’s so many factors that come into play that allow you to do those things,” Ryan said. “So it’s pure speculation on whether he’s capable of doing it — and whether he wants to do it.”
Or, obviously, whether a dude throwing 104 can possibly stay healthy enough to do it.
“We weren’t allowed to get hurt,” Ryan dead-panned, “pitching on a one-year contract, you know. So it’s all changed.”
But here’s what hasn’t changed: Hitting is hard — and getting harder. Especially when the monster on the mound can throw his fastball past you any time he wants — and you both know it.
So who really threw harder — the man with the most strikeouts ever or the starting pitcher with the hardest fastball ever recorded? How can we ever know? But I had one more question for Ryan. And much to my surprise, it made him laugh out loud.
When he pitched, I reminded him, he had a fastball with its own name: The Express. So how, I asked, could The Miz be the hardest thrower ever if his fastball didn’t even have a name.
He let out a big, deep belly laugh. It lasted for nearly five seconds. Then he had one last thought.
“Well,” said Ryan, “the hitters probably have a name for it.”
