One of the most common baseball cliches this time of year is the old “best shape of his life” descriptor. Sometimes it’s true and sometimes it’s all hype to feed an otherwise empty news cycle.
In a detailed profile of Noah Syndergaard written by Ben Reiter of Sports Illustrated, it is revealed that the old cliche might just be true for the young right-hander. According to Reiter, Syndergaard has put on 17 pounds of muscle this offseason, and trimmed his body fat percentage from 15.1 to 13.5. He is now 253 pounds.
If anyone thought Syndergaard’s ability to throw harder than any starter in the game was only a temporary phase, think again. According to Fangraphs’ Pitch f/x data, Syndergaard’s fastball averaged 97.9 miler per hour last year, almost one and a half miles per hour more than the next-fastest starter. Syndergaard’s slider and changeup were both faster than all other starters in the game.
Syndergaard, 24, posted a 2.60 ERA over 183.2 big league innings in 2016 striking out 218 opposing hitters.
