Noah Syndergaard took the mound today for his Binghamton debut — and this was a huge step forward for the 20-year old. He was taken out of the game with 88 pitches under his belt — and he still had a lot left in the tank. He was impressive over a solid six innings of work, allowing two earned runs off five hits and a walk, while striking out seven. Syndergaard was incredibly efficient with his strike:ball ratio, with 62 of his 88 pitches going for strikes.
The only blemish on this outing was the third inning, where he allowed three straight hits to begin: a triple, a single, and a double. Two runs scored with none out, but Syndergaard induced a soft ground out and then Joe Bonfe gunned down Jamie Johnson, who was trying to score on a fly ball, to end the inning. It was relatively smooth sailing for the prospect after that, as he finished up his afternoon with his last out being a strikeout.
He might have been out there longer in a close game, but Richard Lucas, Cesar Puello, and Rhyne Hughes each drilled a home run to support their new teammate — with Lucas slamming a second one for good measure.
Needless to say, I believe this is a glimpse into the future of Syndergaard, who is perhaps in battle with Rafael Montero to be our top pitching prospect right now.
Our reliable John Bernhardt is at the Binghamton game and will be charting Syndergaard’s pitches from behind home plate, and photographer Gordon Donovan is also there. So expect pictures and notes later on!
We’ll also have an exclusive interview with L.J. Mazzilli later today from Jim Mancari who is covering the Cyclones all season long for us. We appreciate your readership here at MMN.
Love this kid! I think he gets the nod for top prospect because he’s only 20 in AA and has an upper 90’s fastball that scouts love. I’m a huge montero fan and think he should be getting more praise from scouts and top prospect rankings but scouts love the fastball when rankin pitchers! I think montero is gonna have an amazing career! We should have the best pitching staff in the majors very soon! I hope montero gets to start the season in ny and then we get another top pitching prospect up after the super two cutoff next year in Syndergaard!! It’s good to be a mets fan again!!
Thats just the beginning of the talented young arms we have coming! We are stacked!! With puello and Flores almost ready we only need a couple big names this offseason and we are looking very very good in NY! Hope people get their mets jokes in while they can cause they will all be praising Alderson very soon!
I love when people say Noah will need to be traded to bring in a young bat here. We have so, many talented arms on the rise there is no guarantee he will have to go anywhere. Fullmer, Matz, Lara, Cessa, Bowman, Verrett, Montero, Degrom, Tapia, and that’s just the tip of the ice berg right now. There is more than enough young pitchers to bring a very good young OF in return.
Wholeheartedly agree. Montero is deserving of Mets’ fan love, and has had a tremendous year, but so has big Noah. He’s younger, has a higher ceiling, and has the “ideal” physical tools one looks for in a pitcher. I think the Mets will be conservative with both. The earliest I can see Montero is late April to miss the first cutoff, but the safer bet would be next year after the Super-2 deadline. Big Noah will have to dominate the next two levels to be up by next June, so I’ll play it conservative and say Sept. 2014 call-up.
Either way, it’s a lot of fun to see all these kids continue to develop and work their way up the ladder.
I think that’s their point. We have so many arms, we can afford to trade big Noah. That and if he is the best that we have, the better bat we should be able to acquire.
I’d bet that one of Noah or Montero is gone in a trade at the deadline or in the off season. I’d love to see both of those guys keep up what they are doing and one day do in a Mets uniform, but the fact is we have built this pitching depth to allow for trades to fill other needs. And those guys are the most valuable chips we have. I don’t think we’ll see them both gone, but if we are going to try to get in on Stanton or Cargo or one of the Cubs top offensive prospects, one of those two will likely have to be included.
If these kids keep whizzing through the system as Montero and Syndergaard are doing then we’re going to have a scary rotation for many years with plenty of depth in the minors.
And some trade chips as well.
Nice debut for Noah. The BMets are really putting together a nice season with the best record in the Eastern League. Players like Puello, Dykstra, Montero, Leathersich, Walters and Verret have put together solid seasons. The pitching has the 2nd best ERA & WHIP while the hitting has posted the most runs and best OPS thus far.
Really good to see and with the exception of the PCL the pitching down as far as the SAL has been among the top 3 in ERA & WHIP. Hopefully it translates into helping the major league club either directly or indirectly by helping acquire talent that ends up getting the team a W.S. Ring.
I just feel strongly that Noah could very well be the best out of this young group of pitchers still in the Mets system. To me the scouting reports and his ability to utilize his big frame seem like the ingredients for a special pitcher. If Im the Mets brass Im exhausting almost all other options before parting ways with Noah. Id trade Montero over him in a heartbeat right now.
Let the NOAH HYPE begin…lol….I think he’ll be the #2 behind Harvey when all is said and done….I like Wheeler but I like this kid a slightly more…. his delivery is really clean and he has easy arm action….
With that said im excited to see Wheelers next outing….only thing that scares me with him is potential arm injury due to his throwing mechanics