When Noah Syndergaard looks around his home office, he can't help but feel that some more decor would brighten it up.
"I would still love to win a World Series and to win a Cy Young," he said, turning to the walls around him during an interview with Newsweek. "I think that would look good in my office, maybe a couple of them."
Despite having accomplished virtually everything else that one can on a pitcher's mound, striking out big-league hitters nearly 1,000 times and winning more than 50 games across eight seasons, Syndergaard is pushing himself toward a comeback in 2025 with hopes of accomplishing more.
A Cy Young Award and a World Series championship are really all that's left. Syndergaard was a first-round draft pick in 2010 and made his Major League Baseball debut in 2015 with the New York Mets, earning Rookie of the Year Award votes as part of a promising rotation alongside Matt Harvey and Jacob deGrom.
In 2016, at age 23, Syndergaard had his best season, making the All-Star game and earning Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Award votes with a 2.60 ERA and 218 strikeouts in 30 starts. He led all of the majors in fielding-independent pitching (FIP) and in limiting home runs per nine innings pitched with a fastball that averaged 98.6 miles per hour.
But he struggled with injuries over the next five years with the Mets and signed a one-year deal with the Los Angeles Angels for the 2022 season before being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. For the 2023 season, he joined the Los Angeles Dodgers before being traded to the Cleveland Guardians, who released him that August.
Given how that 2023 season ended, he isn't content to just walk away.
"If I'm going to be done playing baseball, I'm going to go out on my own terms. The last two years weren't anywhere near my standards at all," he said. "Getting released by the Guardians to having a very poor couple of months with the Dodgers, I just know I have a lot left in the tank. ... It's hard to get it out of my head: That could be the last pitch in the big leagues I've ever thrown."
Falling short of his own expectations has pushed Syndergaard to revamp his body, his mentality and his daily routine in hopes of returning and redefining the final outings of his career.
Syndergaard has adapted his training routine with a focus on holistic wellness, mental fortitude and becoming "as loose and elastic as possible." He's partnered with supplement provider Thorne, which he has been "fanboying over" for years; he prioritizes getting early morning sunlight to set his circadian rhythm; he has a barrel sauna and a cold plunge which he adds magnesium to before jumping in. He's "huge into" meditation, grounding and making connections with the earth. At night, he mixes tart cherry juice with magnesium glycinate, limits his blue light and does breath work.
The changes have had a dramatic impact on his body, which has always been a domineering presence on the mound. With the Dodgers, Syndergaard weighed as much as 255 pounds but he's now down to 230. He weighed about 240 pounds during his All-Star 2016 season.
"I've shifted my training quite a bit," he explained. "I'm not trying to put up personal records on back squats anymore because that's not really going to show up on the baseball field. ... The past two years, I've felt like I've been throwing like a shot putter when I want to transition to a javelin thrower."
Syndergaard doesn't train with a radar gun as "those things tend to get in my head a little bit," but he's confident that the new training regimen has preserved the fastball velocity that was a calling card in his most productive seasons.
"I know that the ability to throw 100-plus miles per hour is still there, but I just had to block out all the noise and just get back to feeling athletic and re-teaching myself, my body, how to throw a baseball the correct way," he said. "I feel like I can get on the mound in front of some scouts and throw 95, 96, I feel like there's going to be good opportunities out there."
He reevaluated some changes that he made to his delivery after undergoing Tommy John surgery in 2020, with regrets around the coaching he received at that time.
"I just wish I could go back and fix that mindset of mine, because now it's almost like my body has forgotten how to throw that way (before the surgery)," he said. "Because you can look at a video of me back in the day and look at a video now and there are just discrepancies that are very different, that are characteristic to being able to throw the ball hard. And a lot of coaches started getting in my head, telling me to do this, I need to do that."
"I know I'm an elite pitcher," he added. "So I just need to trust that and get back to trusting myself. I just know there's a lot left in the tank and I'm not anywhere near ready to give that up."
Syndergaard did not have any tryouts or meetings lined up but was told by his agent that some executives were inquiring about him following the general managers meetings earlier this month. Last offseason, he threw in front of about 15 teams and felt that he had a positive mound session, but never received a contract offer.
He trusts that the work he's put in since then will earn him the chance to rewrite the final chapter of his career and he's open to whatever on-field role that might take. He added that his history with mentoring younger players — like Patrick Sandoval and Reid Detmers during his tenure with the Angels or Alec Bohm, Bryston Stott and Brandon Marsh when he was with the Phillies — is part of his pitch to major league teams.
Ultimately, though, he wants a chance to show that he still belongs on a big-league mound.
"If I'm able to showcase just little glimpses of who I used to be as a pitcher, then I don't think it will be that much of a problem getting a job," Syndergaard concluded. "All I really need is an opportunity."
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