98.4
No one has thrown a pitch with an average higher velocity in 2016 than the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard. His sinking fastball has sat at the number above, while his normal fastball has sat at 97.7 mph. Both have exceeded 101 mph in a game as well.
First it appeared New York had found their ace of the future in 2013 when Matt Harvey emerged. Then in 2014, Jacob deGrom emerged out of thin air before breaking out in a big way last season. Now, with Syndergaard spinning gem after gem, Thor looks like yet another front-end arm in the rotation capable of dominating lineups on a weekly basis.
The notion of the Blue Jays having him on their staff and Travis d’Arnaud at catcher instead of the combination of R.A. Dickey and Josh Thole is almost laughable now. It was a terrible trade at the time by former GM Alex Anthopoulos and it looks now like the Mets were huge winners knowing that Dickey’s 2012 season was an outlier. They did right by selling high on him after his Cy Young season.
Next: Manny Machado's OPS