One day before Noah Syndergaard must accept or reject his qualifying offer, the Mets offseason is taking another shocking twist.
Syndergaard and the Los Angeles Angels are in agreement on a one-year, $21 million deal, pending a physical, according to an ESPN report. The news broke moments after MLB Network reported Syndergaard was making progress on a deal with the Angels.
If Syndergaard — the Mets right-hander who pitched two innings in 2021 following Tommy John surgery — finalizes his one-year deal with the Angels, it would be a surprising turn of events for the Amazin’s. He was expected to accept the Mets’ $18.4 million qualifying offer and return to Queens for at least one year, boosting his value in a healthy season, before hitting free agency again next winter.
The good news for the Mets: they will receive draft pick compensation for Syndergaard and save $18.4 million if he completes his deal with the Angels. The bad news is, improving the Mets rotation was a major priority even before Syndergaard walked away. Now that he won’t be on the pitching staff, the Mets have a Thor-sized hole and a bigger problem to address in their rotation.
Los Angeles, though paying a heavy price for the righty starter, is in need of rotation help, and Syndergaard would join an Angels staff that features two-way star Shohei Ohtani. Many in the industry speculated that the Mets overpaid for Syndergaard by offering him $18.4 million to re-establish himself in 2022. But Syndergaard did even better, scoring a few million more for a fresh start in Anaheim, Calif. with high upside.
The news comes as a surprise to the Mets fan base, since Syndergaard spent the final weeks of the regular season indicating he would be back in Flushing next season.
“It would be a tough pill to swallow not wearing a Mets jersey next year,” Syndergaard said at the beginning of October.
After a two-year absence from the big leagues, Syndergaard returned to the mound in September to cap his comeback from March 2020 Tommy John surgery. He followed medical advice and refrained from throwing his signature breaking balls in two outings, pitching one inning each. Syndergaard saw mixed results in his return, but his ability to show the Mets — and evidently, the Angels — that he can still be effective when healthy was encouraging before he became a free agent.
Thus ends Syndergaard’s six-year tenure with the Mets, a day after the club was in the process of finalizing an agreement with Billy Eppler, the former Angels GM, to serve the same position in Queens.
Syndergaard was traded by the Blue Jays, alongside Travis d’Arnaud, to the Mets in 2012. He made his major-league debut in 2015, helping the Mets make their run to the World Series that year and most notably pitching an inning of relief against the Dodgers in NLDS Game 5. Syndergaard enjoyed an All-Star season in 2016 and finished eighth in Cy Young award voting, as he led MLB in FIP (2.29) across 183.2 innings. He struggled with injuries in 2017 and ’18, posting a combined 32 starts in those two seasons. Then, in a healthy 2019 season that featured Syndergaard accumulating 197.2 innings, he recorded a career-worst 4.28 ERA across 32 starts and allowed the most earned runs (94) in the National League.
Since 2019, Syndergaard has pitched just two innings. Though his level of effectiveness would have remained a factor for the Mets in 2022, Syndergaard poses as a high-risk, high-reward starter who will be two years removed from Tommy John surgery by Opening Day. He walks away from the Mets with a career 47-31 record, 3.32 ERA, 1.162 WHIP, and 777 strikeouts through 120 starts and 718 innings.
The Mets, meanwhile, spent the past seven weeks searching for a GM.
Mets owner Steve Cohen and his top lieutenants in team president Sandy Alderson and soon-to-be GM Billy Eppler must turn their attention to significantly boosting the rotation around Jacob deGrom, Carlos Carrasco, and Taijuan Walker. All three arms are locks to return to the staff, and all three feature question marks when it comes to their health for 2022. Beyond deGrom, Carrasco and Walker, rookie Tylor Megill and southpaw David Peterson are depth options. With Syndergaard leaving behind an enormous gap in the rotation, the Mets cannot afford to also let Marcus Stroman walk away in free agency this offseason.
At minimum, the Mets must acquire at least two starting pitchers this offseason. DeGrom did not pitch in the second half of 2021 due to a partial tear of the UCL in his right elbow and his effectiveness in his age-34 season next year remains in question. Carrasco spent the majority of 2021 on the injured list, only to be bitten by the long ball and record a 6.04 ERA in 12 starts. Walker was outstanding in the first half of the year (2.50 ERA and All-Star nod), before significantly diminishing in the second half (7.13 ERA). Peterson was up-and-down in his second year in the majors, producing a 5.54 ERA before breaking his foot and missing the final three months of the season.
For all those rotation uncertainties, the Mets could’ve used even a somewhat effective 2022 season from Syndergaard, even if he didn’t come close to pitching his career-high 197.2 innings. It will be interesting to learn in the coming days why the Mets, and Cohen’s fat wallet, did not reach an agreement to bring Thor back to Flushing.
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