No One Catches the Ryan Express

This is a little post that I do maybe every ten years or so. The purpose is to point out that nobody – ever – is going to throw as many strikeouts as Nolan Ryan.

It’s the most unbreakable modern-day record in sports. (Nobody is ever going to win more games than Cy Young, but that was a different game in a different time.) Somebody eventually is going to hit in 57 straight games. Somebody is going to break Hack Wilson’s RBI record. Somebody is going to break Hank Aaron’s home run record. (Yeah, yeah, yeah.) But no one is going to catch the Ryan Express.

The way you figure it out is this. Take all the active pitchers with a minimum number of strikeouts. Project the rest of their career and determine how long they would have to pitch in order to catch Nolan Ryan. Because, you see, you can beat the Ryan record of 5714 strikeouts; you just have to keep pitching for as long as he did, as effectively as he did, for 27 years, in his age-46 season.

Methodology: The following table has the active strikeout leaders. I’ve calculated their average strikeouts per year, and assumed that they can keep throwing at that level indefinitely (which is not the way to bet) and calculated just how old they would be when they equaled Nolan Ryan.

Player	Seasons	Age	Strikeouts	Average strikeouts per year	Strikeouts behind Ryan	Years to Ryan	Age to Ryan
Clayton Kershaw	13	32	2526	194.3	3188	16.4	48.4
Max Scherzer	13	35	2784	214.2	2930	13.7	48.7
Chris Sale	10	31	2007	200.7	3707	18.5	49.5
Justin Verlander	16	37	3013	188.3	2701	14.3	51.3
Felix Hernandez	15	34	2524	168.3	3190	19.0	53.0
Gerrit Cole	8	29	1430	178.8	4284	24.0	53.0
Jacob deGrom	7	32	1359	194.1	4355	22.4	54.4
Cole Hamels	15	36	2560	170.7	3154	18.5	54.5
Zack Greinke	17	36	2689	158.2	3025	19.1	55.1
Madison Bumgarner	12	30	1824	152.0	3890	25.6	55.6
David Price	12	34	1981	165.1	3733	22.6	56.6
Jon Lester	15	36	2397	159.8	3317	20.8	56.8
Chris Archer	8	31	1349	168.6	4365	25.9	56.9
Stephen Strasburg	11	31	1697	154.3	4017	26.0	57.0
Yu Darvish	8	33	1392	174.0	4322	24.8	57.8
Aaron Nola	6	27	922	153.7	4792	31.2	58.2
Noah Syndergaard	5	27	775	155.0	4939	31.9	58.9
Robbie Ray	7	28	1042	148.9	4672	31.4	59.4
Trevor Bauer	9	29	1279	142.1	4435	31.2	60.2
Patrick Corbin	8	30	1195	149.4	4519	30.3	60.3
Lance Lynn	9	33	1415	157.2	4299	27.3	60.3
Gio Gonzalez	13	34	1860	143.1	3854	26.9	60.9
Jose Quintana	9	31	1310	145.6	4404	30.3	61.3
Eduardo Rodriguez	5	27	707	141.4	5007	35.4	62.4
Rick Porcello	12	31	1561	130.1	4153	31.9	62.9
Corey Kluber	10	34	1462	146.2	4252	29.1	63.1
Masahiro Tanaka	7	31	991	141.6	4723	33.4	64.4
Sonny Gray	8	30	1066	133.3	4648	34.9	64.9

I left off all the active pitchers who would have had to pitch past their 65-year-old retirement age. As funny as it might be to see Dallas Keuchel pitch until he’s 70 to try and catch Ryan, it’s not going to happen.

So what does this tell us? Is there a chance for the people at the top of the list? It certainly looks possible. Could Clayton Kershaw pitch until he’s 48? He might not want to, but he could try if he wanted to. A 48-year-old Clayton Kershaw pitching in a Rangers uniform is not, shall we say, unthinkable.

But here’s another way to think about it; Clayton Kershaw has been a strikeout machine for his entire career, has pitched at a Hall of Fame level, and he isn’t even halfway to Nolan Ryan’s record. Verlander is only barely halfway to Ryan and it took two unbelievable strikeout seasons in 2018 and 2019 to get there. He’s not going to keep pitching until he’s over fifty, he’s just not.

Of the people on this list, if I had to guess if any of them would even get close, I might pick Chris Sale. Maybe. He can pitch 300 strikeouts a year, if he can keep it up for ten years, coming back from Tommy John, I might say maybe. But I’m not seeing it.