Second-year Mets starter Noah Syndergaard is not the best pitcher in baseball. Even if he's on the periphery of the discussion, he's not on the short list of candidates for that title. He does, however, have the best raw stuff in baseball and I'm not even sure there's strong competition for him on that front.
Monday, his stuff was on full display in Philadelphia during a 5-2 Mets win. The results: 7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 8 K. He now has a 0.90 ERA and 0.95 WHIP with 29 strikeouts in 20 innings through three starts this season.
Let's examine his individual pitches, though, because that's what we're talking about when we say "raw stuff."
1. He was routinely throwing fastballs over 100 miles per hour. Even his sinker (which is a two-seam fastball) hit 102 mph in the first inning. Yes a 102-mph sinker. Laughable.
Through the first two innings, Syndergaard threw a fastball at least 100 mph 12 times. For comparison's sake, here are the pitchers who threw at least 12 pitches of over 100 mph in 2015:
- Aroldis Chapman (336)
- Kelvin Herrera (64)
- Arquimedes Caminero (52)
- Bruce Rondon (28)
- Nathan Eovaldi (28)
- Trevor Rosenthal (13)
So only six pitchers all of last season hit 100 as many times as Syndergaard did through two innings on Monday.
Also, notice that five of the six guys there are relievers, as it's easier to pump it up there at max speed when not conserving one's arm for six or seven innings of work.
2. At one point early-on, Syndergaard threw a 92-mph changeup. A changeup. Only 38 of 77 qualified starters last season averaged 92 mph with their fastballs. Jon Lester's average was exactly 92.0. Thor hit 92 with a straight change on Monday, which, again, would be roughly league average for a fastball.
3. Syndergaard's slider was sitting low-90s and hit 94 at one point. Only 19 qualified starters last season averaged this with a fastball. Syndergaard's slider was that speed and with sharp bite. This wasn't from Monday, but it's what his slider looks like:
Again, that's going faster than the majority of pitchers' fourseamers.
Heading into Monday's outing, here were Syndergaard's average velocities per pitch type:
- Fourseam fastball: 98.67
- Twoseam fastball aka sinker: 98.58
- Slider: 92.44
- Changeup: 89.89
Again, those are averages and not where he's topping out. Most pitchers can't even top out at those levels. Plus, on Monday, Syndergaard was throwing everything harder and that trend figures to continue as we approach the summer (and more consistently warm weather). It's not out of the realm of possibility that he finishes this season averaging close to 100 on his fastball, over 93 with his slider and over 90 with his change.
There is no pitcher in baseball who can match this kind of arsenal with this kind of velocity. It's one of the more ridiculous things in baseball history, actually. Randy Johnson didn't even throw his heater/slider combo this hard in his prime. No one ever has.
Now, the next step for Syndergaard is converting this raw stuff into a huge season. He's off to a good start, but one can't become one of baseball's elite pitchers on stuff alone. There's command (putting the pitch where he wants), control (throwing strikes), stamina (working deep into games to take pressure off the bullpen and maintaining it throughout the season) and more.
The stamina part is something notable to watch as the season progresses for sure. Syndergaard only threw 169 innings at the big-league level last season (I'm including the postseason). In 27 regular season starts, he's gotten at least one out in the eighth inning only six times and has never gotten an out in the ninth.
So, no, Noah Syndergaard isn't as good as Clayton Kershaw, Jake Arrieta or up to 10 or so established, elite-level aces (yet?). He does, however, have better raw stuff than all of them. Just as I said in the intro, I'm not even sure it's close, either.