Faced with a middling rotation on a middling roster, the Angels took a risk this winter when they made Noah Syndergaard their big free-agent pitcher signing over any of the marquee names available. Syndergaard was once one of those dazzling names, but injuries haven taken away three of his most recent seasons (most of 2017, all of 2020, and all but two innings in 2021) and, eventually, the final gear of a fastball and sinker that both tangled with triple digits on the radar gun. It’s difficult for a one-year deal to end too badly, but at $21 million for 2022, the Angels clearly thought of this as more than a pillow contract or a lottery ticket. So has it worked? Sort of.
To get one thing out of the way: Syndergaard is not the pitcher he once was. He’s not exactly Jered Weaver or Zack Greinke, let alone Frank Schwindel throwing 35-mph rainbows to the Yankees, but throwing 93 or 94 mph is quite different than throwing 99 or 100. That said, he’s still gotten decent results, at least in bottom-line numbers, and his ERA stands at 3.69, with his FIP barely behind at 3.81. His strikeout rate has plummeted to just 15.4%, or 5.83 K/9, numbers that barely match up to his 26.4% and 9.74 through 2019. But the lack of strikeouts is partially mitigated by the fact that his control remains excellent, and he’s still effective at preventing hitters from making good contact.
Pitchers have been successful with meager strikeout rates, even in today’s game. However, it leaves little margin for error, and when pitchers like Kirk Rueter or Chien-Ming Wang finally hit a bump, they didn’t just get a flat; the wheels fell completely off. Even with more reason to hope for his health than before the season and after some perfectly respectable performances, ZiPS is actually less confident about Syndergaard’s future than before:
ZiPS Projection – Noah Syndergaard
Year | W | L | S | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | ER | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | 9 | 8 | 0 | 4.08 | 24 | 24 | 132.3 | 134 | 60 | 16 | 33 | 110 | 106 | 2.0 |
2024 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 4.09 | 23 | 23 | 123.3 | 125 | 56 | 15 | 30 | 101 | 106 | 1.9 |
2025 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 4.18 | 22 | 22 | 118.3 | 121 | 55 | 15 | 29 | 97 | 103 | 1.7 |
2026 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 4.19 | 20 | 20 | 109.7 | 112 | 51 | 14 | 27 | 90 | 103 | 1.5 |
2027 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 4.30 | 19 | 19 | 102.7 | 106 | 49 | 13 | 26 | 84 | 101 | 1.3 |
While we can be a little more confident now about playing time, we should also be less bullish about the chances of Syndergaard recapturing his pre-injury form. Even with more innings now projected than at the start of 2022, ZiPS has knocked his rest-of-career mean projection from 19.1 WAR to 13.7. Every game of a decidedly mortal Syndergaard takes us a little farther from the thunder god.
Syndergaard’s inability to finish off batters is probably the most concerning part of his profile in 2022. Hitters are making frequent contact, and what’s more, they’re getting steadily better at it as the year has gone on:
After only allowing a 71% contact rate against the Astros in his season debut and 74% against the Rangers, that number has steadily ballooned. It’s been a month since he’s had a game with it below 80%, and it peaked at 94% in a disastrous short outing against the Yankees, in which they made contact with every single out-of-zone pitch he threw.
Two-strike counts have been particularly problematic. Syndergaard’s strikeout rates for his fastball and sinker are actually unchanged from his more explosive days, but neither the slider nor changeup actually finish off batters anymore. Before 2022, 28% of sliders and changeups thrown with two strikes resulted in a strikeout; this year, that number is only 9%. Almost a quarter of his non-fastball strikeouts have been on curves, and he rarely tries to use that as an out pitcher, throwing only 12 all season in two-strike counts. It’s not that those pitches are drastically different than in the past — the movement data are similar — but for whatever reason, he can no longer punch out batters with two of his formerly most-potent swing-and-miss…
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