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Noah Syndergaard seemed poised to help the Mets this year, after breezing through Double-A with a 11+ K/9 and a 3.00 ER in 54 IP in 2013.  “Matt Harvey on line one, wants Noah to take the call.  Sure, he can hold, he only has the Ghost of Ralph Kiner on the other line.  No, he can’t hold!”  Of course, the Mets can’t have anything nice.  It’s what happens when a club makes a deal with the devil in 1986 for a championship and a Cadillac filled with cocaine.  “I said to take the compact Pontiac Sunbird filled with coke and 15 years of bad karma, instead of the Cadillac and 30 years of bad karma.”  That’s Keith Hernandez explaining his side of things.  In June, Syndergaard was sidelined with a sprained shoulder.  Egads!  But it was his non-throwing shoulder.  Egadless!  The Mets are in the same pickle as every other organization that has a Triple-A affiliate in the PCL.  If they send them to Triple-A, they’re gonna get knocked around.  No, I have no idea why they would have a league that shatters pitchers’ confidence.  But, there they are.  And there was Syndergaard’s confidence being splattered on the wall like a scene from Game of Thrones.  Don’t throw a strike, it’s the white walkers!  In Triple-A, he threw 133 IP, and had a 9.8 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and a 4.60 ERA.  Lowercase yay.  It’s Midnight in the Syndergaarden of Good and Evil and Kevin Spacey is unconvincingly playing a heterosexual.  Snoozegaard, you suck, moving on!  Or does he?  Damn, you reversal question!  Anyway, what can we expect of Noah Syndergaard for 2015 fantasy baseball?

I expect good things.  I’m ignoring the PCL numbers.  I’m pretty much convinced it’s easier to pitch in Metco vs. the NL East, than it is to pitch in the PCL.  Want an example?  Look at Jacob deGrom’s Triple-A numbers vs. his major league ones.  (Please don’t tell me about how DeGrom learned a change from Johan; I know.  The PCL is still tough and deGrom had better peripherals in Metco.)  I believe in my heart of hearts (which is a tiny heart I have inside my other heart that’s labeled Giancarlo) that Syndergaard wasn’t even bad last year.  He had a 145/43 K/BB and a 3.70 FIP.  It’s not his fault that pitching in Vegas means that everyone who gets three cherries at Binion’s gets to throw a pitch in a Syndergaard uni with it counted on his line.  Since Syndergaard can’t throw safely 200 IP next year (prolly around 160), he won’t be up immediately in April, so he’s still a bit of a stretch to draft for mixed leaguers in redraft leagues.  Right now, the Mets have a starting five: Matt Harvey, Bartolo Colon, Jon Niese, Zack Wheeler and DeGrom. Harvey has risk attached to him, Fartolo can’t be counted on and Niese seems to get hurt all the time (maybe it’s that odd five-foot shadow that extends from his nose).  I’m guessing Colon and Niese will be good for about 240 IP combined, which leaves about 160 IP unaccounted for (if you need 400 IP from both of them).  Figure Dillon Gee gets some starts, maybe prospect Steven Matz gets some starts and perhaps Rafael Montero.  That leaves about 100 IP for Syndergaard and around a mid-June/early-July call-up.  For 2015, I’ll give him the projections of 6-4/3.61/1.29/89 in 100 IP.  Solid numbers for an NL-Only league, and definitely someone I’ll be all-in on once he finally gets his chance.  Though, this is the Mets and their Cadillac of coke karma that can’t ever be ruled out.