LAS VEGAS — Noah Syndergaard, the kid, scoured Twitter for news about himself. He offered too many fastballs to guys who could handle them. Ground games to a halt, while standing in the middle of the field, no clue how to make adjustments while pitching. Wanted to scream, cry, rage at why it was all suddenly so hard.
“This is the first time in my life,” Syndergaard says, “that I have really struggled.”
Noah Syndergaard, the man, is on his way. He is better at ignoring social media. He has the guts to break out a 2-1 change-up. He can dominate, and the other times, he can survive. He has not yet emerged in full bloom, but he knows, he feels, the imminence.
“When you’re ready,” says his manager, Wally Backman, “you know. He will know.”
“I don’t feel like I’m ready quite yet, but if I were to get the call tomorrow, I would find a way to get the job done, somehow,” says Syndergaard, self-aware, honest, 21 years old (21!), living in that charged middle moment between boy and adult, where you can see the other side so clearly that it aches, but haven’t quite crossed over.
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Start with the talent. This is the blessing, and the issue. When you’re born with that arm, you breeze through everything, until arriving at Triple-A. Syndergaard is the Mets’ third consecutive Phenom of the Moment, and his repertoire is comparable to, if not slightly better than, Matt Harvey’s and Zack Wheeler’s.
“His stuff is just as good as any of them,” says Backman, who managed all three in Triple-A. “Mentally, he is younger.”
And literally, which we tend to forget, because of the talent. Harvey and Wheeler were 23 when they pitched at this level. Twenty-one and 23, so different from one another, such particular moments of human development. Syndergaard is so young, and in the unique position of growing in front of a hungry, impatient public.
“It is kind of challenging sometimes, because playing in New York, they have all these expectations,” he says, quiet and earnest. “The fan base, they can love you, and then the next start wouldn’t live up to their expectations, and they will shun you for that. So (paying attention to that) is something I’ve tried to stay away from.”
Ten minutes after losing to the Albuquerque Isotopes on Thursday night, Syndergaard is leaning his 6-foot-6, 240-pound body against a wall in the hallway outside the 51s’ clubhouse. This one was disappointing, because of the recent progress, three consecutive starts in which his stuff was clicking, his confidence building, his promotion looking closer.
On Thursday, Syndergaard needed 102 pitches to survive five innings. He allowed just two earned runs, but struck out only four batters, while walking the same. This seemed odd to one scout who sat behind home plate (and there were several; Syndergaard’s reputation as a top prospect has drawn evaluators from clubs who might engage the Mets in a trade this winter).
“He was throwing 94-97 and hitting the corners, with pretty good movement,” the scout said. “What surprised me was the good amount of contact, and lots of foul balls. You would think a guy who threw that hard would have more than four strikeouts…He’s got the arm, thats for sure, (but) based on this, he’s not quite ready.”
That assessment is no harsher than the pitcher’s own view, and the scout noticed another issue that Syndergaard and coaches have identified: “He works too slowly. I think if he speeds himself up, he’ll be better.”
He does tend to labor, and overthink, on nights when his stuff isn’t quite there. Thursday brought progress, as Syndergaard was able to manage his difficulties in a way that he calls “night and day” from what he would have done in April.
This is in part a result of Backman’s tough-love decision to leave Syndergaard on the mound when he is struggling. A few months ago, the kid might have cast furtive, “aren’t you coming to get me?” glances toward the dugout; now, the young man is learning to push through.
“When he does get in those situations, I want to see him pitch himself out of it,” Backman says. “It builds character, so you’re not always looking over your shoulder, so he wants the ball in his hand, to dictate what’s going to happen.
“There is so much hype. He has been so built up. And the stuff is definitely there, no question. For him to have to pitch out of trouble, like I said, it builds character.”
It’s not necessarily fun, this process of becoming. The rewards are sweet, but that is later. The grinding to get there? Exhausting.
“It’s hard to make adjustments,” Syndergaard says, once again nailing it, “but that’s the big step, and what separates a minor league pitcher from a big league pitcher.”
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He thought he would be in New York already. At the beginning of the season, Syndergaard expected to follow the same course as Harvey and Wheeler before him: Wait for the Super Two deadline to pass in June, making him more cost-effective to the team, and then ascend to a rotation spot.
In April and May, the balance of his focus was off. The Internet ate up too much of his time, as he hunted for speculation about his status, and ran into the nasty fringe of haters. He was out of the moment, overly engaged in the near future instead.
“Going into the season, I put a lot of expectations on myself to be in New York by now, and to help the Mets continue to some wins, and a playoff push,” he says. “So I think that was something I paid way too much attention to. I paid more attention to that than just paying attention to the fact that I was in Vegas for a reason.”
Syndergaard is not the first phenom to get antsy at Triple-A. Harvey was in Backman’s office every day in 2012, peppering his manager with “When am I going up? When am I going up?”
“At the time, you don’t really think of it as pressure, but once you finish that level and come to this level, you do realize that you were putting too much pressure on yourself,” Harvey recalls now.
In the big leagues, Harvey says, your only job is to get hitters out. In the minors, you’re distracted by impatience, development, career ambition, and fear. Only when you get to the majors, do you realize that you “don’t have to impress anybody. You don’t have to throw 20 change-ups. You just pitch,” he says.
For Syndergaard, late May and early June brought two developments that drew him closer to that breakthrough. The first, oddly, was the realization that he would not be promoted soon, because of two minor injuries, and general ineffectiveness; that allowed him to relax and concentrate on succeeding in Vegas. The second was pitching coach Frank Viola’s return from heart surgery.
The two have become close, as Viola — who himself was rushed to the big leagues with Minnesota before he was ready, and nearly drowned for a season and a half — sees an eager and dedicated prodigy.
“It’s easy when a kid is willing to listen and take chances,” Viola says. “It has been really easy to talk to him, to relate to him.”
Working with a coach who believes deeply in him, Syndergaard can absorb Viola maxims like “You don’t learn from being successful, as quickly as you do when you struggle,” and feel better. He can understand that critiques come from a caring, supportive place.
“He gets to minor league ball, and he has no idea who he is as a pitcher,” Viola says. “He gets in trouble, he goes to his 97-mph fastball. It worked in low-A, it worked in high-A, it worked in Double-A, but guess what? It doesn’t work in Triple-A.”
What follows that realization is an extended period of oh s–t, now what do I do? Syndergaard has devoted the year to addressing that question, to struggling, sinking, sulking, rising, learning, emerging — all the internal movement that happens when you’re young, and discovering what kind of adult you’ll be.
So what now? Let’s say Viola’s bosses called and asked for a recommendation on whether Syndergaard should be promoted. How would he answer?
“I would be right on the edge,” says Viola, after a pause. “I would want to be careful, because it could set him back a little bit, knowing his psyche, and his age and experience. But I also know that he’s a lot tougher inside than a lot of people realize. He might be able to get through it, but it’s touchy…”
Then, a clearer opinion: “I would probably lean towards holding back a little bit longer, but knowing that it’s not that far off.”
Right there at the precipice, but not quite ready to jump. Sparks flying inside, but also fear. Progress happening, but not as fast as you want. The weird thing about it, though? You actually miss the turmoil later, when you’re a grownup, when the months and years pass more easily.
