3 pitchers who can serve as upgrades to Noah Syndergaard

The New York Mets just made three huge additions, signing Starling Marte, Mark Canha, and Eduardo Escobar to bolster a lineup that finished 27th in runs per game last season and was a key reason why the Mets finished 77-85.

Those additions are great and signaled one very important thing. The Mets are going to spend, and they will spend a lot. They will probably re-sign Javy Baez or bring in a different infielder to shore up their depth there.

The next area the Mets should be looking to spend big is the rotation.

Noah Syndergaard is a guy pretty much everyone expected to take the Qualifying Offer and serve as the number two in the rotation behind Jacob deGrom this season.

Syndergaard ended up signing with the Angels for one-year $21 million dollars. This is a loss for the Mets as there isn't a pitcher available who will get a one-year deal with more upside than Syndergaard but is it really the end of the world?

Syndergaard is full of potential and I hope he reaches it in Anaheim. But how likely is it that he'd pitch like a $21 million-dollar pitcher? He's thrown two innings in two years. I would've liked it because it's a one-year deal and there's no risk on a one-year deal especially when the team will be over the luxury tax, but there're definitely better and safer options available. in free agency and via trade.

Max Scherzer

I know this is unrealistic. Scherzer was very clear at the trade deadline that he only wanted to go out west. However, I don't think it's impossible that his mind can be changed. After all, money talks. And the Mets have lots of it.

Max Scherzer is the perfect fit for this Mets rotation. This season he re-established himself as one of the games best after a shaky 2020 campaign. He went 15-4 with a 2.46 ERA in 30 starts with the Nationals and Dodgers.

After being traded to Los Angeles, Scherzer went 7-0 with a 1.98 ERA in 11 starts. As the season went on, when the stakes were higher, Scherzer was at his best.

He's most definitely a top five pitcher in the game currently and would be the baseball's best number two starter.

For a rotation that suffered through a lot of injuries this past season, including to Jacob deGrom, getting an iron man like Scherzer would be massive. He's made 30+ starts every season since 2009 except the shortened 2020 season and in 2019.

Scherzer has extensive playoff experience as well. He won a World Series championship with the Nationals in 2019, starting in Game 7, gutting out five innings after being injured before that start.

Scherzer was the Dodgers choice to pitch in the Wild Card Game this season and allowed just one run in the victory. Having a guy with so much postseason experience would be huge for a team that lacks much of it.

Replacing Syndergaard with a pitcher who's durable and better sure seems like the perfect place to start.

Kevin Gausman

Kevin Gausman is an arm I am on the fence about. For most of his career he was just an arm on a bad Orioles team eating innings.

Since heading to San Francisco, it seems like everything changed. Gausman put up a 3.62 ERA in 10 starts during the shortened season. In that season, he struck out 11.9 batters per nine, walking just 2.4 And he only allowed 1.2 HR/9. He posted a 3.09 FIP showing that his lowered ERA really wasn't a fluke.

In 2021, he had his best season yet. Gausman was an All-Star for the first time. He went 14-6 with a 2.81 ERA in 33 starts. He struck out 10.6 batters per nine, and only allowed 0.9 HR/9. Gausman finished sixth in the National League Cy Young voting and will get paid in free agency.

However, there are some red flags. Gausman's first half and second half were very different. In the first half, Gausman went 9-3 with a 1.78 ERA in 18 starts. In 15 second-half starts, his ERA ballooned to 4.42.

Gausman allowed 64 hits in 114.2 innings pitched in the first half. In the second half, he allowed 86 hits in 77.1 innings pitched. He went from allowing 50 fewer hits than innings pitched to 9 more hits than innings pitched.

While that's not great, his strikeout rate actually improved in the second half from 10.4 K/9 to 10.9 K/9. One reason Gausman really improved was because of how successful his splitter was. He had a 45.9% swing and miss rate on that pitch in 2021 and is key to his success.

Overall, I believe there is definitely some risk with Kevin Gausman, but he's shown an ability to at the bare minimum eat innings and if he can improve or repeat what he did in 2021, that will almost certainly be an upgrade over Noah Syndergaard.