Mets’ Noah Syndergaard to have Tommy John surgery, miss entire 2020 season

It was reported on Tuesday that New York Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard is going to have Tommy John surgery and that he’ll miss all of 2020.

Just a couple of days ago, we lost one big-name starting pitcher to Tommy John surgery. Now, Jeff Passan of ESPN is reporting that New York Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard “has a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow” and will need to have Tommy John surgery, knocking him out of action for all of 2020 and likely into 2021 as well.

Syndergaard, 27, is coming off a season in which he made a career-high 32 starts but also posted a career-high ERA of 4.28 while leading the league in earned runs allowed, with 94. Despite the inflated ERA last year, the Mets were going to be counting heavily on Syndergaard in 2020 as they try to catch the defending National League East Champion Atlanta Braves and World Series Champion Washington Nationals.

Syndergaard debuted in 2015 and has a career record of 47-30 with a 3.31 ERA. This isn’t the first time that Syndergaard will miss significant action due to injury. In 2017, he was limited to just seven starts due to a partial tear of his right lat. He also was limited to 25 starts in 2018 due to injuries.

As for what this will do to the Mets’ rotation, Jacob deGrom remains the ace, and the team acquired Marcus Stroman last year to help bolster their rotation both down the stretch and for 2020 as well. So it looked like the rotation would be stronger this year, yet Syndergaard’s injury presents a huge setback for the team. Now the newly acquired Michael Wacha and Rick Porcello, both coming off subpar seasons, will need to take on bigger roles, along with Steven Matz.

Without Syndergaard, the Mets could still contend under new manager Luis Rojas, but it just became a lot more difficult. We’ll see if they make any moves to help offset this as we wait for the 2020 season to begin. This also represents a big setback personally for Syndergaard, who has had trouble repeating his 2016 form, when he was an All-Star and finished eighth in NL Cy Young Award voting. Hopefully, he will be able to come back strong next year.