Best Musician Q&A of the Year: Kate Sullivan locks souls with Stephen Patrick Morrissey. Like many of the best interviews, it starts straight away with the ghosts, contains reasons to hate in addition to love (especially the yammering about cats and dogs); plus, he ends up asking her half the questions. Here's a good quote:

Well, so, next time you see a squirrel on the road, if its innards are not splayed all over the place, you should stop and make sure and move it.

Because she has the sag of cruelty about her face, her eyes, her mouth. The jowl of cruelty. She has a Nazi face.

Because of my ongoing theories about how rock, sports and pop culture broke through the smothering awfulness of the early '70s, I was particularly interested in this exchange:

All right, I'm trying to imagine experiencing glitter rock fresh, and I want to know what it was like for you when you were 11 or 12, and you were seeing it happening as a kid. Did it seem like these were other English people to you or did it seem like they may as well be from Mars?

It seemed to me as if they were from Mars, because even though it was 1970, 1971 in reality, the fact is that England in 1971-72 was really still stuck in 1958. So, if you can imagine how 1958 was, and then suddenly you have the New York Dolls, they seemed so intergalactic, absolutely nothing to do with the human race, and thank heavens for that.

But really, people can no longer comprehend how bleak the turn of the '70s was. There was nothing to buy. You couldn't buy decent clothes. So therefore, when you would see somebody like the New York Dolls, you would be absolutely mystified as to where they actually found their clothes and their shoes, because certainly in Manchester, there were no accessories. Everything was very, very fundamental and very drab. So, the very idea of, as you term it, glitter rock, or, as some people term it, glam rock.... It was more extraordinary than people can really even imagine. It was an absolute revolution. [...]

In the early '70s, it was very difficult to hear music. Music was never used in television advertising, it was never used in radio or advertising of any kind. So, the only way you heard music was your own personal taste, going into a record shop and buying something.

Otherwise, there was no music in the media at all. There was no pop-rock music in the media, and people forget this also. It was very, very difficult to hear music, and so, therefore, if in life you came across somebody who knew the music you liked, it was extraordinary. But now, of course, it's blasting everywhere, and it's background music in television soaps, it's background music in everything. But it wasn't the case in the '70s; it was very, very rare.

02/03/2007 10:39 PM  |  Comment (2)

Ryan-Tanana Redux: Moments after publishing the post below (about which there was a good discussion over at Baseball Primer), I slapped my forehead and said "Duh!" -- of course the most illustrative way to compare the Angel careers of Nolan Ryan and Frank Tanana is to simply list each of their eight seasons next to one another, ordered by value. So, without any further ado:

NM YR  W  L  ERA GS CG SH  IP    K   BB WHIP ERA+ WS  AS? CY MVP       
NR 73 21 16 2.87 39 26  4 326.0 383 162 1.27 124 27.8  x   2  17
FT 76 19 10 2.43 34 23  2 288.3 261  73 0.99 137 26.5  x   3  15
NR 72 19 16 2.28 39 20  9 284.0 329 157 1.14 128 24.7  x   8  30
NR 77 19 16 2.77 37 22  4 299.0 341 202 1.34 141 22.1  x   3  24
FT 75 16  9 2.62 33 16  5 257.3 269  73 1.10 135 22.0      4
NR 74 22 16 2.89 41 26  3 332.7 367 202 1.27 119 20.7      3  14
FT 77 15  9 2.54 31 20  7 241.3 205  61 1.09 154 20.4  x   9
NR 76 17 18 3.36 39 21  7 284.3 327 183 1.32 100 16.7
FT 74 14 19 3.12 35 12  4 268.7 180  77 1.26 111 14.6
FT 78 18 12 3.65 33 10  4 239.0 137  60 1.25  99 14.2
NR 79 16 14 3.60 34 17  5 222.7 223 114 1.27 114 13.6
NR 78 10 13 3.72 31 14  3 234.7 260 148 1.41  98 11.8
NR 75 14 12 3.45 28 10  5 198.0 186 132 1.43 103 11.6  x
FT 80 11 12 4.15 31  7  0 204.0 113  45 1.31  95  9.3
FT 79  7  5 3.89 17  2  1  90.3  46  25 1.31 106  5.0
FT 73  2  2 3.08  4  2  1  26.3  22   8 1.06 116  1.9

A pretty deadly one-two punch for a few seasons there. Well, actually, just one: 1977.... One of the many marvelously infuriating things about analyzing Nolan Ryan's bizarre career is that for three of his four seasons between 1975 and 1978, while at the healthy ages of 28-31, he pitched at merely league-average effectiveness. That is the only four-year stretch during his 22 seasons of starting at least 20 games for which you could say that....

Anyway, Tanana at his brief best ('74-77) was better on a per-inning basis; Ryan at his best added extra value by pitching 60 more innings a year. But we already knew that.

One of the original Rob Neyer points about Ryan's Hall of Fame-worthiness -- it can reasonably be argued that Ryan was not, over a five-year span that represented a good chunk of his peak, even the best pitcher on his own team -- got me to thinking: How many seasons was Ryan the best pitcher on his own team, and how does that compare to the best pitchers of his era? So using Win Shares, I counted:

14 Tom Seaver: 1967-1973, 1975, 1977-9, 1981, 1983, 1985
13 Bert Blyleven: 1971-8, 1981, 1984-6, 1989
13 Phil Niekro: 1967, 1969, 1971-2, 1974-80, 1982, 1984
10 Steve Carlton: 1972, 1974-82
9 Jim Palmer: 1970-73, 1975-78, 1982
9 Fergie Jenkins: 1967-8, 1970-2, 1974-5, 1977, 1982
8 Gaylord Perry: 1967, 1970, 1972-75, 1978-79
8 Nolan Ryan: 1972-74, 1977, 1981, 1983, 1989, 1991
7 Tommy John: 1965, 1968-70, 1977, 1979-80
5 Catfish Hunter: 1967, 1970, 1972, 1974-5
5 Don Sutton: 1971-3, 1984-5
5 Luis Tiant: 1967-8, 1972, 1974, 1976
5 Frank Tanana: 1975-6, 1978, 1984, 1989

No grand conclusions, other than that the generation of starters who came into baseball from 1962-70 sure was special (you could add a few more Hall of Famers and near-misses if you stretched it down to 1959). Oh -- and the American League in the 1970s was just lousy with premium starting pitchers. I mean, look at the 1974 AL Cy Young voting -- four Hall of Famers in their primes, followed by Luis Tiant, a four-time 20-game winner with a .587 lifetime winning percentage, and a guy who won 17 games in relief while saving 13 more. The National League from 1973 onward was basically Seaver and the Muppets, with guys like Jack Billingham and Don Gullett getting votes in multiple seasons, amid a crowded field of weird-looking relief pitchers. John freaking Montefusco came in 4th place in 1975. Another thing to think about, in addition to ballpark effects and all the rest, when wondering why Bert Blyleven seems so curiously under-represented in All-Star games and post-season awards voting. Sometimes a position is just stacked.

02/03/2007 02:47 PM  |  Comment (1)

Nolan Ryan Revisionism: I'd always assumed that Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups was all about competing theories of lineup construction; breakdowns of the most underappreciated leadoff hitters and overrated buntaholics, etc. But it's not! As I discovered by finally buying the thing, it basically does a bit of what I've been doing with my "Ten Best Seasons By an Angels Whatever-Fielder" series -- identifying the best players and best seasons at each position for each franchise, and using that as a jumping-off point for several other observations.

It's good, so I'd like to argue with some of it. First up, this notion, which you see repeated often in sabermetric circles, about Nolan Ryan:

The argument against Nolan Ryan as a great pitcher is that he was seldom great over the course of a single season. [...] [B]aseball writers ... never rated him as better than the second-best pitcher in the league; he finished second in the Cy Young balloting once (1973), and third twice.

What's more, it can reasonably be argued that Ryan was not, over a five-year span that represented a good chunk of his peak, even the best pitcher on his own team. From 1974 through 1978, Ryan went 82-75 (.522) with twenty-two shutouts and a 3.19 ERA. Those same five seasons, Frank Tanana went 82-59 (.582) with twenty-two shutouts and a 2.86 ERA. [...]

For the five seasons before he hurt his arm, Tanana was demonstrably better than his teammate

1) [Ryan] was seldom great over the course of a single season

Yes, Ryan only had that one 2nd-place finish in Cy Young voting, and two 3rds ... even though that's more than, say, Phil Niekro and Don Sutton. But he also had a 4th-place finish and two 5ths, giving him six trips to the Cy Young top 5 -- a decent definition of a "great" season, no? That's more top-5 finishes than Fergie Jenkins or Gaylord Perry. He made the top 10 in eight seasons, more than Steve Carlton. He also won two ERA titles (more than Bob Gibson), was in the top 5 in ERA five times (more than Eddie Plank), and the top 10 in ERA eight times (more than Early Wynn).

How about a Neyertastic metric, like Win Shares? Nolan had five seasons of more than 20 (28/25/22/22/21, pro-rating 1981). Not a ton, but more than Chief Bender, Catfish Hunter, Red Faber and Lefty Gomez, for example. Point being, Nolan was "great over the course of a single season" more than "seldom."

2) For the five seasons before he hurt his arm, Tanana was demonstrably better than his teammate

Was Tanana "demonstrably better" than Ryan in 1974, the first of those five seasons? Nope, not close:

NM W  L  ERA  GS CG SH  IP    K   BB WHIP ERA+ WS  AS? CY MVP
NR 22 16 2.89 41 26  3 332.7 367 202 1.27 119 20.7      3  14
FT 14 19 3.12 35 12  4 268.7 180  77 1.26 111 14.6

How about season 4, 1977? Not if you use Win Shares, or pay special heed (as Neyer did above) to postseason award voting:

NM W  L  ERA  GS CG SH  IP    K   BB WHIP ERA+ WS  AS? CY MVP
NR 19 16 2.77 37 22  4 299.0 341 202 1.34 141 22.1  x   3  24
FT 15  9 2.54 31 20  7 241.3 205  61 1.09 154 20.4  x   9

3) it can reasonably be argued that Ryan was not, over a five-year span that represented a good chunk of his peak, even the best pitcher on his own team.

This is an argument that has been used for years to as a way to correct the misperception among people younger than me that Frank Tanana junkballed his way to 240 wins, when in fact he was a deadly strikeout pitcher with great control on his way to a Hall of Fame career before blowing out his arm. Lately, though, this argument has been used to suggest that Ryan in his Angel prime wasn't a great pitcher. This just simply ain't true.

Yes, taking as a whole the discrete five-year period of 1974-78 -- which happened to contain four of Tanana's five best seasons -- the lefty was a bit better than Ryan (who had just two of his five best seasons over that span). Despite this best of all possible comparisons for Tanana, the competition is still fairly close. Here are their five-year numbers, averaged out:

NM  W  L   %   ERA GS CG SH  IP    K   BB WHIP ERA+  WS
FT 16 12 .582 2.86 33 16  4 259.0 210  69 1.13 128 19.5
NR 16 15 .522 3.19 35 19  4 269.7 296 174 1.35 114 16.6

Ryan was much better in 1974, Tanana was much better in '75-76, Ryan was slightly better in 1977; Tanana was slightly better in 1978. It was close. But there's a big BUT here; two, actually. First is the obvious observation that beginning in the Angels' Yes We Can season of 1979 (when the two were still teammates), Ryan was the more valuable pitcher in 11 of the 15 seasons after this comparison period, often (as in '79) much more so.

Second, and more germane to the Neyer quote at hand, measuring Ryan from 1974 onward (a "good chunk of his peak," remember) conveniently skips over the fact that he compiled his best two seasons, and two of the four best seasons ever by an Angels pitcher, in 1972 and 1973 -- winning 40 games, pitching 610 innings, striking out 712 batters, tossing 46 complete games, 13 shutouts and two no-hitters; while making two All-Star games, finishing twice in the top 8 in Cy Young voting, and twice in the top 30 for MVP.

If you took Ryan's best five-year span as an Angel (1972-76) and measured it against Tanana's best, it's razor-close, but I'll take The Express:

NM W  L    %   ERA  GS CG SH   IP     K   BB WHIP ERA+  WS
NR 19 16 .544 2.94  38 21  6  285.0  318 167 1.27 116 20.3
FT 16 12 .582 2.86  33 16  4  259.0  210  69 1.13 128 19.5

Twenty Win Shares in one season, let alone averaged out over five, is a ton; more than Bartolo Colon in his Cy Young 2005 season, for example. And of course, while Tanana had ERAs above 4.00 for most of the rest of his career outside his five-year peak (and never below 3.16), Ryan dropped a 1.69 bomb in 1981, and didn't go above the 4.00 threshold until he was 46 years old.

To paraphrase, it can reasonably be argued that Ryan was, over a six-year span that represented a good chunk of his peak, among the best seven pitchers in baseball, in an era packed with some of the top front-line starters in history.

Win Shares, 1972-77*
149 Jim Palmer
148 Gaylord Perry
138 Tom Seaver
135 Steve Carlton
134 Bert Blyleven
128 Phil Niekro
123 Nolan Ryan
(* does not include adjusting the strike-shortened 1972 season to 162 games, blah blah blah)

That's six Hall of Famers and a guy who deserves to be. Contemporary HoFers and near-misses who did not best Ryan's 1972-77 run include Catfish Hunter, Don Sutton, Fergie Jenkins, and Luis Tiant.

Nolan Ryan was definitely one of the weirdest pitchers in history -- arguably the most unusual -- and his reputation during my lifetime has veered wildly from godlike creature to mediocrite to overrated turncoat to mid-life wonder to saint. But he really was something special for the Angels in 1972, 1973, 1974, and 1977. Something not even the great Frank Tanana could top during his too-brief prime.

01/29/2007 11:27 PM  |  Comment (9)

Hi! What are you doing down here?