LA Angels: Who is the greatest starting pitcher in franchise history?

The Angels don’t have the deepest history of all-time great starters, but they have a few who dominated in their time. Who is the greatest starting pitcher in Angels history?

The Angels, whether of California, Anaheim, Los Angeles of Anaheim, or Los Angeles haven’t always been known for their pitching, as their recent struggles in putting together a respectable staff reminds us.

Five Hall-of-Famers have pitched for the Halos, but only one for any length of time, and that is, Nolan Ryan. While there have been several very good pitchers who called Anaheim home, compared to their Freeway counterparts in Los Angeles, the list of all-time great Angels pitchers is pretty thin.

A sobering start to an article that plans on ranking the top Angel pitchers in franchise history, but important context to consider in placing each of these players in relation to where they would rank among the best in baseball. This isn’t a perfect list, but it’s a list of pitchers who through either consistency or extreme peaks became some of the best starters in Halo history.

Older Angel fans remember the saying, “Tanana and Ryan and two days of cryin’,” which perhaps best sums up the history of Angels starters. Even when they had two of the better pitchers in baseball, it was still a question mark after that.

In evaluating the best pitchers in team history, I focused on the seasons in which they pitched for the Angels. They could have been great somewhere else, or terrible somewhere else, it doesn’t matter. The only thing used in evaluating their ranking is how they fared while calling The Big A their home ballpark.

Some honorable mentions before we get started: Dean Chance (1961-1966), John Lackey (2002-2009), Mike Witt (1981-1990). Ok, so now that you have a little spoiler alert on who is not included, let’s get to the list.

3) Chuck Finley

Chuck Finley never won a Cy Young Award, never led the league in wins or strikeouts, and his four All-Star appearances while wearing an Angels uniform were scattered over 14 seasons in the American League West.

The left-handed power pitcher’s resume doesn’t jump out at you, but if you look closely at his peak years, and follow his consistency over a long tenure with the Halos, he was good enough to cement his name atop many of the franchise’s all-time leaderboards.

Finley is the club’s all-time leader in career wins above replacement (52.0), along with traditional measures such as wins (165) and innings pitched (2675). He reached double-digit wins in ten of the 14 seasons he pitched for the Halos. From 1988-1999, he was the team’s Ace, taking the mound each year on Opening Day.

A 15th round pick from the 1984 draft, Finley’s best seasons came between 1989-1991, when he went 52-27 with a sparkling 2.93 ERA, pitching 20 complete games and striking out nearly seven batters per nine innings. In ’89 and ’90 he finished second in the American League in run prevention, his ERA over those two seasons the best in baseball, ahead of premier pitchers, such as Bret Saberhagen and Roger Clemens.

Finley might not have been elite enough to win a Cy Young Award in any given season, but for a few years in the late eighties and early nineties, he was one of the top pitchers in baseball. Combining his peak years with his long record of consistency confirms his case as one of the Angels greatest starters.

2) Jered Weaver

Modern day Angel fans still miss the easy consistency of Jered Weaver, who was the team’s Opening Day starter for eleven consecutive seasons between 2006 and 2016.

Weaver finished his Angels career second in franchise wins (150), but also second in winning percentage (.617). If advanced metrics are your thing, the long-haired starter is the club’s third all-time leader in career wins above replacement (36.1).

A first round pick out of Long Beach State in 2004, Weaver had his best season in 2012, leading the American League in wins as he finished the year 20-5 with a 2.81 ERA. He finished third in Cy Young voting that year, after finishing second in Cy Young voting the season before, when he went 18-8 with a 2.41 ERA. Over those two seasons, Weaver had the fourth best ERA in all of baseball, behind Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, and Johnny Cueto, a pretty impressive list.

What stood out about Weaver was his ability to rack up strikeouts while keeping his command consistent, his career strikeout to base on balls ratio third best in Angels history.

Weaver led the league in wins for the second time in 2014. He went 18-9 with a 3.59 ERA, striking out more than seven batters per nine innings. Every single year that you look at Weaver’s numbers, you see the same roughly seven K’s per 9 and only two BB’s per 9.

In the games that mattered most, the right-hander was also pretty good. He pitched in 27.2 postseason innings, and allowed only eight earned runs. His best performance coming in Game 2 of the 2009 ALDS against the Red Sox where he pitched into the eighth inning, allowing only one run, two hits, and striking out that consistent number, 7, while walking only two.

1) Nolan Ryan

When there’s only one Hall-of-Fame pitcher who made his name pitching for the organization, it makes it pretty easy to guess who the greatest starter in Angels history is.

Nolan Ryan pitched at least five seasons for four different teams, but his longest and most productive tenure came during the prime of his career with the Angels. He finished his Halo career second in career wins above replacement (40.0), third in wins (138), fourth in ERA (3.07), and first in strikeouts (2,416), complete games (156), and shutouts (40).

He pitched four of his amazing seven career no-hitters while starting for the Halos.

The right-handed starter, who was acquired from the Mets in 1971, was a workhorse who would seem completely unfamiliar to the modern baseball fan used to seeing pitchers pulled in the 5th or 6th innings.

Ryan started 39, 39, and 41 games, respectively between 1972 and 1974, three of the highest number of starts in franchise history. He led the league in innings pitched (332.2) during his ’74 campaign. He finished at least 20 complete games in five of his first six seasons in Anaheim.

Ryan stepped off the rubber and delivered to the plate more than any other Angels pitcher not named Chuck Finley. And he did so while striking out hitters at a record-setting pace. From 1972 to 1979, his last in Anaheim, he led the league in strikeouts in seven of those eight seasons.

The Texas native was an All-Star five times as an Angel, and he finished within the top three of Cy Young voting three times (1973, 1974, and 1977).

LA Angels: Who is the greatest catcher in franchise history?

It’s overwhelmingly clear that the best pitcher in Angels history is Nolan Ryan.