Noah Syndergaard to have Tommy John surgery, per report

MLB Rumors: Noah Syndergaard, New York Mets starting pitcher, has a damaged UCL and will undergo Tommy John surgery, according to Jeff Passan on Twitter.

Syndergaard, a 27 year old righty who is a native of Mansfield, Texas, is considered one of the best pitchers in baseball in terms of pure stuff, averaging 98.1 mph on his fastball and 97.9 mph on his slider in 2019, both tops in baseball among starters. He’s shown stretches where he has been an ace-caliber pitcher, but missed most of 2017 due to injury, and was fairly average in terms of bWAR in 2019, though he was at 4.4 in fWAR.

There’s a school of thought that pitchers who throw hard sliders with lots of movement are more prone to UCL issues, and Syndergaard definitely would quality as someone who throws a hard slider with lots of movement. He will miss all of whatever 2020 MLB season we have, and would be slated to return sometime in late May or June, 2021, if his rehab goes normally, and will hit the free agent market after 2021.9, though he was