The Mets made a somewhat surprising roster move when they optioned RHP Noah Syndergaard after their 5-4 win over the Cardinals on Friday.
The Mets also re-assigned Kevin Plawecki, Jon Velasquez and Cory Mazzoni to the minor league side.
Syndergaard was previously scheduled to pitch against Tigers LHP David Price in Lakeland tomorrow. Instead, Steven Matz will start on Saturday.
The Mets need to start stretching their front five guys out in games, get their main relievers work as well as figure out who is going to be in left-handed relief. So, it makes sense to send these guys down now.
According to Adam Rubin of ESPN New York, Syndergaard recently took a ball off of his ankle, so it’s a good precaution to option Noah now, especially since they’ve gotten to a point in the spring where they don’t want to risk injury while in big league camp. If he’s here and needs to go on the disabled list at this point in time, he would have to go on the big league DL which would start his service time clock.
Noah showed a lot of positive signs this spring, but also showed the pitching maturity problems the club wants him to work on. It’s not going to happen overnight, and the good news is, as I said, is he showed progress. The key for him will be to take this approach – which is to not be too fastball happy – and execute it in Las Vegas.
Syndergaard made three relief appearances this spring, allowing four runs on six hits with three walks and nine strikeouts in 7 1/3 Grapefruit League innings this spring.
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