The Chicago White Sox signed veteran pitcher Noah Syndergaard to a minor-league contract, the team announced Tuesday morning.
The right-hander will report to the club’s complex in Glendale, Ariz.
Syndergaard last pitched in the majors in 2023, going 2-6 with a 6.50 ERA and 56 strikeouts in 18 starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cleveland Guardians. He is 59-47 with a 3.71 ERA and 928 strikeouts during 164 career outings (162 starts) for the New York Mets (2015-19, 2021), Los Angeles Angels (2022), Philadelphia Phillies (2022), Dodgers (2023) and Guardians (2023).
He made a splash as “Thor” with the Mets, finishing fourth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting in 2015 and earning All-Star honors and placing eighth in the NL Cy Young Award voting in 2016.
Syndergaard was limited to seven starts in 2017 because of a partial tear in his right lat muscle. He missed the 2020 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery and almost all of 2021 (pitching two innings in two starts) as he made his way back.
He appeared in 25 games (24 starts) for the Angels and Phillies in 2022. In 2023, he made 12 starts for the Dodgers and six for the Guardians before being released by Cleveland that August.
Syndergaard could be a rotation option for the Sox, who continue to keep a close eye on the innings of their young pitchers like Shane Smith, Davis Martin, Sean Burke and Jonathan Cannon. Martin went on the injured list Friday with a right forearm strain. Cannon, who is on the IL with a lower back strain, is scheduled for an injury rehab assignment start Tuesday for Triple-A Charlotte.
This week, the Sox pushed Burke’s start back a day to Wednesday. Jordan Leasure will serve as the opener Tuesday against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Last month, the Sox signed right-hander Adrian Houser. He has pitched at least five innings in each of his six starts for the club.
Right-hander Aaron Civale has made two starts for the Sox since being acquired in a trade from the Milwaukee Brewers for first baseman Andrew Vaughn on June 13.
“Quite honestly, right from the beginning, you’ve got to stay on top of how the pitchers are responding from start to start,” Sox general manager Chris Getz told reporters Monday at Rate Field of monitoring the innings for the young starters. “Obviously you measure the workload. You look at the innings and the quality of the pitch, you look at the biomechanics of the pitcher. You take feedback from the pitcher and those were really motivating factors in us bringing in an Adrian Houser, making a trade for Civale, for us to comfortably give those guys a break when it’s needed.
“You don’t want it to be for significant reasons like an IL stint. It’s more to give these guys a breather, skip a start, give them an extra day’s rest and feel like we are still being competitive in doing so. Something we are continuing measuring.
“We know as we navigate the season, we are probably going to have to get creative with some things. We have proven a willingness and openness to get creative, like a Garrett Crochet situation last year (the left-hander went no longer than four innings beginning July 6, but stayed on a schedule to finish with 32 starts). That might apply to some of the arms we have here.”