Dodgers Watching Syndergaard's Time to the Plate, Ability to Hold Runners

New Dodgers pitcher Noah Syndergaard has been very good at times in his career, but even at his peak, he's never been great at holding runners on first base. In his career, opposing would-be base-stealers have been successful 169 out of 190 times, an 89% success rate.

The league-average success rate is about 73%, so Syndergaard's number is a major outlier. As LA manager Dave Roberts told the media from Camelback Ranch on Friday morning, Syndergaard's ability to hold runners is something the team is working with him on, or at least planning to.

"We're watching it. With Noah, right now he's really trying to focus on some things mechanically that he wants to kind of get that foundation. But, the fact is he's got to continue to get better at holding runners.

"How do we do that? There's varying times, there's increasing delivery times to the plate, because at some point giving up 90 feet isn't going to be helpful for a guy that can put the ball on the ground and potentially get a double play.

"I know Noah is mindful of that and we're going to continue to work together to get better."

Stolen base attempts might be up this year, at least if MLB has its way. Two of the rule changes this season — larger bases and limited pickoff attempts — were at least partly designed to increase the running game. So Syndergaard was going to need to make some changes just to break even ("running to stand still," as U2 sang), but if he's hoping to cut down on opposing runners' success rate, those changes will probably have to be pretty meaningful.