The signing of Noah Syndergaard
Just a few hours ago, the Angels officially signed free agent pitcher Noah Syndergaard, previously from the New York Mets. The contract is for one year and will pay him $21 million, the largest single-season pitcher salary in franchise history. Here, I’ll talk a little bit about Syndergaard’s pitching style, his expectations coming off a long-term injury, and what he’ll mean for an Angels pitching staff that has lacked star power and consistency for the better part of a decade.
Syndergaard as a pitcher
Syndergaard debuted in 2015 for the Mets and has been an excellent pitcher ever since. He’s averaged over 6 innings per start in each of his 4 full seasons, and has pitched to the tune of a 3.32 ERA and 2.93 FIP (85 ERA-, 72 FIP-) in 718 career innings. From 2015–2019, he ranked 10th in pitcher fWAR despite having fewer total innings than anyone in the top 20.
His pitch arsenal consists of a fastball, sinker, slider, changeup, and the occasional curveball. Like many others who throw both a fastball and sinker, he primarily locates the four-seamer high in the zone against opposite-handed hitters to get swinging strikes, and the sinker low against same-handed hitters to induce ground balls. The changeup is probably his best pitch, and both the offspeed and slider have consistently posted well above average whiff and swinging strike rates, carrying him up the leaderboards to the top 10 in overall swinging strike rate, ahead of Justin Verlander and Yu Darvish.
Syndergaard is well-regarded as one of the hardest throwers in the league — in 2016, he averaged a ludicrous 98.6 mph on his fastball. Throughout most of his career, he threw each of his 4 primary pitch types with an average speed of over 90 mph, which is nearly unheard of even in today’s era where velocity is king. The raw velocity dipped a small amount after the lat tear that took away most of his 2017 season, but in his last full season the four-seamer still averaged 97.8 mph. He’s able to consistently throw so hard due to his simple, repeatable mechanics. There aren’t too many moving parts — he strides straight towards the plate, his hip-shoulder separation is clean, and he minimizes arm and shoulder strain as much as possible for someone who throws so hard, allowing him to continue pumping triple digit gas deep into starts.
Despite having some of the best velocity and swing and miss stuff in the league, labeling Syndergaard as a power pitcher may severely underrate other parts of his skillset. He’s not wild like many other flamethrowers of his generation — his career 5.6% walk rate is far better than the league average of about 8.5%, and among 122 pitchers with at least 500 innings since 2015, he ranks 15th at avoiding free passes. He’s not just a control-over-command guy either — he throws pitches with a purpose and locates incredibly well. This heatmap is from his 2019 season — each pitch has a distinct location that he aims for (and usually hits his spot). Against left-handed hitters, he goes up and in with heaters paired with changeups low and away to maximize the separation from his fastball, and when facing righties he pivots to a more sinker/slider focused arsenal, jamming hitters with sinkers in and getting them to chase sliders away with a very horizontal focus.
Because of his pinpoint command and deep pitching repertoire, Syndergaard doesn’t just strike everyone out (although his 26.4% clip is well above average), he’s also a master of inducing weak contact and preventing hitters from doing damage on balls in play. In almost every season, he’s been in the top 10% of the league at limiting barrels and hard contact, and his career 49% groundball rate compared to just a 30% flyball rate ranks quite highly as well. His groundball tendencies are especially magnified against right-handed hitters who primarily see sinkers and sliders from him — both generally groundball pitches. While lefties have a 1.4 groundball to flyball ratio in his career, righties hit ground balls twice as often as fly balls.
Injuries
Syndergaard has suffered two long-term injuries in his career. The first (as alluded to earlier) was a torn lat in his back that occurred after he refused to take an MRI after being scratched from a start, ending his season after just 7 starts. After pitching mostly complete 2018 and 2019 seasons, he had Tommy John surgery in March 2020, causing him to miss the near entirety of the 2020 and 2021 seasons. He came back to make 2 one-inning appearances in September this year, but notably didn’t throw any sliders or curveballs, indicating he may not be fully rehabbed to throw breaking balls yet. The velocity was way down (averaged 95 on the heater), but I wouldn’t read too much into this — he threw a grand total of 26 pitches and was likely under orders to not throw at max effort.
For the Angels
Aside from Shohei Ohtani, this is the biggest free agent pitcher signing for the Angels since CJ Wilson in 2012. For a team that has had a below average pitching staff for each of the past 6 seasons, having a marquee signing like that of Syndergaard is huge. While the team has been active in the past in trying to pursue top level free agent pitching talent, they haven’t successfully signed one until today. He likely joins Shohei Ohtani and Patrick Sandoval as the only true locks to be part of the rotation in 2022, with plenty of backend type guys already on the team to fill out the rotation along with potential future free agent signings.
This signing likely signals the front office will be aggressive with major league signings this offseason. A one-year deal with the loss of a draft pick shows the team is committed to winning now — and they should. With a star-studded lineup including Trout, Ohtani, Rendon, Walsh, and others, a few patches to the offense and some big pitching moves should propel the team to the playoffs for a long-lasting competitive window that includes both free agent signings like Syndergaard as well as the development of home-grown pitchers currently in the organization.
Any risks/downsides?
If you want to nitpick there are a few things you can point out about Syndergaard that may cause some apprehension. While I don’t agree with these claims, I will attempt to explain some reasons for concern.
First, there’s always the risk that he won’t come back the same after rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. Will he be an equally effective pitcher throwing 96 as he was when he threw 98? It’s also possible that this makes him more prone to future injuries, and with the track record of Angels pitchers, another major injury could be a big problem, especially on a one-year contract. Furthermore, his 2019 season was the worst of his career — his only below average season by park-adjusted ERA. In a more hitter-friendly park like Angel Stadium, his comparatively worse performance against left-handed hitters as compared to righties may hurt him in the second most homer-friendly ballpark for lefties in the league, especially since he allows more flyballs to lefties than righties. Even if his strikeout and walk numbers remain constant, maybe his home run to flyball ratio will increase due to the park, hurting his performance. And finally, because Syndergaard declined a qualifying offer from the Mets, his signing comes with the loss of a second round pick, who could eventually become a strong prospect in the Angels system.
Now that I’ve laid out the case against him, I want to explain why I disagree with the points I’ve just outlined.
The Tommy John is concerning, but the majority of pitchers come back with their arm strength intact. This is especially true for younger pitchers, and despite a lot of big league experience and time missed from injuries, Syndergaard is only 29. I also think he’ll maintain effectiveness even if his velocity goes down another tick. The four-seamer coming in at 97 instead of 98 may get fewer whiffs, but he could adjust by throwing more sinkers and truly embracing the groundball approach. His slider and changeup would also still be thrown in the 88–91 range, absolutely ridiculous from any pitcher. There is a risk that he gets hurt again, but this is a risk that exists in every single pitcher. It’s possible that the team’s aversion to risk in previous years caused them to focus on only a few good pitchers who had better offers elsewhere, ignoring the crowd of very good, but non-superstar talent and forcing them to scrape the bottom of the barrel come February. 2022 will also be his first time in a six-man rotation, giving him more rest between starts and further reducing the risk of injury.
Syndergaard did have a below average ERA in 2019, but his 3.60 FIP was 17% above league average. He did give up a few home runs on his fastball, but this was peak juiced ball era, and many pitchers who struggled with the long ball that year have since rebounded. He had nearly identical strikeout and walk rates to his 2018 season in 40 more innings. It’s possible that he slightly regressed, but much of the decline in results can be chalked up to the juiced ball and normal season-to-season variance. And while left-handed hitters may hit bombs in Angel stadium, it’s not like Syndergaard is a bum against them — he’s worse against lefties but his ERA and fly ball rates are still above average. His current Steamer projections have him as roughly an average pitcher, likely due to the fact that his 2019 was poor by his standards and he barely pitched in 2020 and 2021. The main thing that stuck out to me was that they projected him to have just a 19% strikeout rate, which I don’t think will happen even if his velocity declines a bit. The slider and changeup have just been too good for him to suddenly have below average stuff, even after coming back from Tommy John surgery. Finally, the draft pick issue is the least of my concerns. Yes, drafting is fun, but the MLB draft is the biggest crapshoot of them all. Many studies have estimated the monetary value of an average player drafted with a mid-2nd round pick to be in the $3–4 million range. If Syndergaard’s contract was for 1 year, $25 million with no draft pick loss, would you still be in favor of it? I know I would.
Conclusion
So there you have it. A big ticket pitcher for the Angels has been a long time coming, and hopefully it’s the first of many important transactions that will lead to victory in 2022. Thanks for reading!
