Raising Aces: Debut An... (05/14)
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May 21, 2015 Raising AcesDebut Ante: Noah Syndergaard
Prior to the season, Noah Syndergaard placed as the no. 9 overall prospect in the game and ranked third among pitching prospects, trailing only Lucas Giolito and Dylan Bundy on the Baseball Prospectus Top 101. Both Giolito and Bundy are working their ways back from Tommy John surgery (Giolito in particular has a lot of ladder still to climb), but Syndergaard beat them to the bigs in 2015. The Mets needed a pitcher to fill in when Dillon Gee hit the disabled list, and Syndergaard got the call.
2014-15 Statistics
The kid they call Thor had toiled in the rough environs of Las Vegas and the Pacific Coast League since the start of the 2014 season, with a track record that was marred by the results of balls in play, but he came out with guns blazing this season and was shutting down opponents regardless of context. His first couple of starts in the bigs have had their ups and downs, but his elite potential was immediately on display.
Game Stats
Syndergaard's debut came on May 12 against the Cubs, against a lineup full of players that also started this season in the minors. The first categories that stand out are always walks and strikeouts, and in this case both values require a bit of context. One of his free passes was of the intentional variety, just your typical “walk the no. 7 hitter to get to the pitcher” approach (thanks Joe Maddon), and removing that gimme from his count brings the walk rate all the way down to 8.2 percent (thanks tiny sample). The approach worked, as Syndergaard got out of the second inning with a strikeout of Jake Arrieta, and therein lies the other caveat—of Thor's six punch-outs, three were of opposing pitcher Arrieta, who finished the day 0-for-4 with four strikeouts at the plate (in addition to his 10 Ks from the mound).
The rookie put up a much more polished stat line in his second turn, with just three hits and one walk allowed over six innings of work. The opposing pitcher only accounted for one of the strikeouts this time around, but his pitch command was more shaky than the single walk would indicate, and his tendency to miss with arm-side fastballs resulted in a scary moment for Carlos Gomez, when a sixth-inning pitch got away from Syndergaard. Thankfully, Gomez appears to have escaped the incident without major damage.
Syndergaard has brought the gas at an average of 98 mph in his first two starts. He stayed within a narrow velocity band, with all of the hard stuff clocking between 96 and 99 mph, and in both games he came within a hair of triple of digits at max velo (99.8 mph peak in each contest). He held his velocity extremely well, particularly in the second start, in which several of his hardest throws of the day came after the 80-pitch mark. Changing speeds on the heater will be on his developmental to-do list, but for now it is more critical that he maintain velocity and fastball command deep into ballgames.
The breaking ball is another massive offering that has earned double-plus grades on the scouting scale. He throws the pitch with late movement and steep break, with a good 15-20 mph velocity difference from his heat yet a fastball trajectory out-of-hand, allowing him to disguise the pitch and invoke ugly swings. The movement on his curve is so sharp that Thor shakes the ground when he brings the hammer, giving his catchers a workout as they attempt to corral wayward breakers in the dirt.
The changeup is still a work in progress, and the pitch will take the focus of his early development. Adding an effective off-speed pitch to his arsenal will not only help to minimize platoon splits against left-handed batters, but it will give him additional weapons as he gets deeper into the ballgame so that he can help to combat the times-through-the-order effect.
Mechanics Report Card
For an explanation on the grading system for pitching mechanics, please consult this pair of articles.
I gave Thor's mechanics a B grade in the 2015 Starting Pitcher Guide , with a nod to his upside but recognition of his shortcomings, given his rare combination/profile of high stability yet modest power resulting in big velocity. He has upped the ante on his power categories this season at the expense of some of that stability, an adjustment that may have been necessary for the 22-year old to reach absolute ceiling.
His momentum has been a work in progress, as Syndergaard has gradually improved from a turtle's pace to the plate to one that was just slightly below average last season. He has brought it up another notch this season, with an earlier initiation of forward movement and some acceleration through the stride phase of his delivery. He has been able to time his trigger of trunk rotation with greater ease, possibly due to this quicker pace to the plate, as his hip-heavy torque is reliant on that trigger timing to let the hips generate separation. Syndergaard is still adjusting to the new rhythm, and it is common for him to have a late arm, particularly on fastballs, resulting in the hard-thrown pitches that miss up and to the arm side of their targets.
His balance is still excellent, offering plus stability in all three planes from first movement through foot strike. The sacrifices take place near release point, as Syndergaard has not shown the same level of posture this season. It occasionally spikes a 60 grade to match his typical delivery of last season, but more often he falls into the average bucket given some extra glove-side spine-tilt. It's relatively common for pitchers to sacrifice balance and posture in the name of generating more momentum or bigger torque (in particular), and his track record of physical stability suggests that Syndergaard can make the necessary improvements to extrapolate the best from both worlds.
I will stick with a B-grade for his overall delivery thus far in 2015, with acknowledgment of the considerable upside baked into his report card.
Doug Thorburn is an author of Baseball Prospectus. Follow @doug_thorburn
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