Who will save the day for each MLB team?

New York Mets – Noah Syndergaard

Since making his highly-anticipated rookie debut in 2015, Noah Syndergaard has been one of the most electric starting pitchers in the league. But due to a torn lat muscle, he was forced to miss more than five months of the season.

He just barely eclipsed 30 innings pitched in 2017, going 1-2 with a 2.97 ERA. In 2016, over the course of 183 2/3 innings pitched, Syndergaard went 14-9 with a 2.60 ERA, 1.149 WHIP, 2.29 FIP and a strikeout rate of 10.7 SO/9. The 25-year-old was named an all-star and even garnered a handful of NL Cy Young votes.

Those are the kind of elite numbers the Mets should to continue to get from the young phenom. In 2018, the hope will be for Syndergaard to pitch 200 innings. It’s a tall order, especially for someone who throws as hard as he does. According to FanGraphs, his average fastball velocity in 2017 was 99.6 miles per hour.

There’s a lot of questions surrounding the Mets heading into the 2018 season. They aren’t currently expected to be contenders, but they certainly have to talent to be. Health will be their biggest obstacle to overcome. One they haven’t been able to clear for a couple years now.

It will start with Noah Syndergaard. Jacob deGrom might the ace of the team right now, but Syndergaard is their ace of the future. If he can stay healthy this year, it will dramatically improve the Mets’ chances of making a postseason push.