Noah Syndergaard Wants to Make Reading ‘Cool Again’
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Creidt: Noah Syndergaard/Instagram
There has been a Cold War brewing in the National League this offseason. A Cold War of cold hard cash between the Mets, Dodgers, and Padres at the top has seemed to have erupted. With superstar power on all three teams, it is natural to assume that tensions will run high between the teams. On Twitter, it seems that the tensions have already spilled over into a feud between two star-level pitchers. Noah Syndergaard and Trevor Bauer, who interact with fans on social media in different ways. On Friday night, they decided to interact with each other, thanks to an indirect barb fired by Syndergaard.

He was clearly making light of Bauer’s free agent fiasco in which his website posted merchandise hinting he was signing with the Mets. He of course eventually signed with the Dodgers on a massive deal, which served as a point of annoyance for those who were hopeful he would sign with the Mets. Bauer offered an olive branch after the fiasco however, offering to donate $10,000 to five charities in New York, which Syndergaard spoofed in his tweet. But Bauer being Bauer, he had to jab back. After complimenting Syndergaard on his rehabbing efforts, Bauer attacked the way that Syndergaard has interacted with some fans on Instagram.

After exchanging some more words, the two finally called it a night. With the addition of the newly-found feud between the two pitchers, it immediately makes it more interesting to compare the two lightning rod pitchers.

If you start with Bauer, his best season was last year’s campaign, in which he used to earn his massive contract that he got with the Dodgers. In 11 starts last season, Bauer compiled a 1.73 ERA last season, striking out 100 batters and earning a WHIP of 0.795. This was the best season of Bauer’s career so far, outside of his 2018 season in Cleveland. In his other seasons, he has had an ERA of over 4.00.

Syndergaard’s best season came in 2016, when he pitched to a 2.60 ERA, struck out 218 batters, and registered a WHIP of 1.149. Syndergaard, if his rehabilitation goes well, is projected to return around May or June.

If there is one thing that separates the two pitchers, it is the way they use their pitches. While Syndergaard likes to use a wide variety of pitches to get his strikeouts, Bauer heavily relies on his fastball. As shown in the chart below, Bauer used his fastball over 40% of his pitches last season.

As you can see below, Syndergaard uses his sinker just as much as he uses his fastball.

Something that is oddly similar between the two is that both Bauer and Syndergaard struggle in allowing stolen bases. Bauer allowed the sixth most stolen bases in the National League last season. In his 2016 season, Syndergaard allowed an insane, league-leading 48 stolen bases against. It would be interesting to see what his ERA would have been that season had he not allowed all of those stolen bases.

The Syndergaard-Bauer rivalry is now the second rivalry that a player on the Mets has with an NL West powerhouse team. You only need to go back to 2019 to relive the feud between Pete Alonso and Padres pitcher Chris Paddack.

Back when Alonso and Paddack were rookies, Paddack was upset because he was not receiving enough spotlight for Rookie of the Year. Although Alonso won Rookie of the Year, both him and Paddack took a step back in performance during the 2020 season. While Alonso is still slotted in to be the starting first baseman on the Mets, Paddack’s spot in the rotation is in jeopardy due to the moves the Padres made this offseason. That adds another layer of intrigue to the rivalry between the two players, which comes at a time when both teams are on an upward momentum swing.

While the Mets certainly have to deal with the tough teams in their own division, if they want to go deep in the playoffs, they will have to fight through the NL West as well. Both the Dodgers and Padres have loaded themselves with talent this offseason, especially in their starting rotations. The fact that Mets players have begun to feud with players on both of those teams adds another level of intensity to what were already heated matchups on paper. The Mets and Dodgers are not slated to play each other until the middle of August, when they’ll play seven times in ten days. With divisional races likely to be hot, and Syndergaard potentially back from injury, baseball fans could be in for must-watch games between the two teams.

9 comments on “With Syndergaard-Bauer spat, Mets West Coast rivalries grow

  • Steve_S.

    Wow, Paddock was 9 % below average for ERA+ last year, while Alonso was 23% above average for OPS+ in 2020!

  • Wobbit

    Just want to say that Pete went through a miserable stretch in 2020, which is common for all players, especially in their second season. But he was clearly coming alive when the aborted season ended after 60 games, and he would have had another 100 games in a regular season to counter his cold streak. It would be sad to say he would have reached 40 HRs and gotten his BA up to a respectable level. It’s unfortunate that he is being tagged with a “bad year”… he just had the bad portion of a year…

    2020 will always be an anomaly in that the question will always be which part of their season did any player have?
    Trevor Bauer made 12 starts… 20 more starts awaited him… a couple of bad games and he does not win the CYA.
    Lindor also had a third of a season, plenty of time to work through issues and get on track for career numbers.
    Conforto might have seen astronomical numbers… we will never know.
    Cano? Dom Smith? McNeil? DeGrom?

  • ChrisF

    How about these guys shut up, throw a baseball, and let the stats talk for them?

    • Metsense

      +1

    • Bob P

      +2

    • TJ

      Y’all are really dating yourselves….

      +3

  • Mike W

    I am really glad we didnt sign Bauer. I dont care how good he is. He is in it for himself and would have probably created trouble after a week. Syndergaard also has too much time on his hands.

    Really looking forward to the season to start. For the first time in years, I am really excited about the roster.

    I am good with the roster the way that it is, but maybe Alderson pulls one more rabbit out of the hat and trades for a third baseman.

  • TexasGusCC

    Only thing that I don’t know about is if the Padres have the market for a long-term battle with the Dodgers. The Padres may not have as much cushion for too many mistakes.

  • Mr_Math

    Not to dog pile on Trevor “the quality human being¹”, but there seems to be talk about him facing a permanent kibosh to his MLB career.

    1. I should point out that I’m not judging Bauer on this alleged incident which occurred with a female, since his guilt/innocence has not been established. My gripe is the way he trolled Mets fans on his YouTube channel during the off season, which I feel he did merely to juice the Dodgers for the maximum $, and had no intention of signing with the Mets

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