Noah Syndergaard looking to Dodgers to help him restore his thunder

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Whether it’s Evan Phillips and Yency Almonte in last year’s bullpen or Tyler Anderson and Andrew Heaney in the starting rotation, the Dodgers have gained a reputation for turning around the careers of pitchers and making them into something no one really thought they could be – a shut-down reliever in Phillips’ case, an All-Star in Anderson’s.

Tell Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior that he needs to lean into this belief in makeover magic as his brand and he just smiles and deflects.

“Tyler was healthy last year. What he did last year and a lot of the success that he had last year was Tyler-driven,” Prior said. “And at the end of the day, all of these things are player-driven and we’re just doing our best to support these guys in their own individual ways that set them up for success. That’s always our message. It’s not like we have this thing where you punch in and you punch out and things happen. We’ve had our failures too.

“It’s player-driven. It’s buy-in. It’s the ability to work together. It was a lot of fun to work with Tyler and Andrew last year. I’m happy for those guys. And hopefully, we’re talking in November and Noah (Syndergaard) is another (success story). … But he was really good and he got hurt and he had a good year last year. So I don’t view this as a huge flyer that we’re taking.”

Syndergaard is indeed a different type of candidate to receive whatever secret sauce that Prior, assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness and the rest of the Dodgers’ staff have concocted.

The 30-year-old right-hander readily acknowledges that he signed with the Dodgers this winter because of their track record of getting the best out of pitchers. But he’s not asking the Dodgers to make him into something he’s never been, just help return him to what he was.

“First, the coaches here are unbelievable, super knowledgeable, the best coaching I’ve ever had in my career,” Syndergaard said this spring. “There’s just synergy among the pitching coaches, the strength coaches, our trainers, the training room. They all work together to make the best version of me show up every five days.

“Last year, I was kind of pulled in all different directions trying to figure out what works for me, what doesn’t. I’m this big, powerful guy and they were trying to get me to fit this mold of somebody I wasn’t.”

What he was with the Angels and Phillies last year was searching. Returning from Tommy John surgery and trying to rediscover himself while competing at the major-league level “was like trying to change the tires on a car while it was still moving.”

Syndergaard said he had heard that pitchers physically recover from Tommy John surgery before they are mentally over the 12- to 15-month ordeal.

“Yeah, I guess there’s something to that, a hangover and that’s what everybody was talking about last year,” he said. “Early in the year when I didn’t have the velocity I wanted, they were, ‘Well, you’ll be fine in July.’ Then July I didn’t have it. Then it just became like a Chinese handcuff – the more I struggled, the harder it was, the more I tried to get out, the harder it was.”

The offseason was a chance to start fresh and Syndergaard embraced it.

After pitching for the Phillies in the World Series, Syndergaard made visits to two pitching-development facilities – Tread Athletics in North Carolina and Driveline’s location in Arizona – and also went to a clinic in Utah for a full-body stem-cell treatment aimed at rejuvenating the body. After celebrating Christmas at home in Texas, he relocated to Arizona and became a regular presence at the Dodgers’ Camelback Ranch complex long before spring training began.

“I wanted to show the Dodgers that I was dedicated and buying into their program and trusted that they were going to get me back to not a serviceable four or five guy but another ace, like I was before surgery,” Syndergaard said.

Syndergaard’s fastball averaged 98 mph when he was that ace and All-Star in 2016. But injuries and surgery have robbed him of some of that thunder. His fastball averaged a mortal 94.5 mph last year and his strikeout rate took a corresponding dive – from 9.7 per nine innings over his first five seasons to 6.3 while changing the tires on a moving car last year.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said this spring that “people get a little too caught up in velocity, especially when you’re talking about Noah.” But Syndergaard has been honest – recovering that lost velocity is a priority for him. He said in December “I see no excuse as to why I can’t get back to 100 mph and even farther than that.”

It hasn’t happened yet. His fastball has sat at 93-94 mph in three Cactus League outings.

“Velocity is important for anybody,” Prior said. “If he gets to 100, yeah, that’d be awesome. It just gives you more margin for error.  If he’s 95, 96 – he knows how to pitch. I think he showed that last year. He commands the strike zone. He puts guys on the ground. His strikeout numbers were down a little bit last year. That’s from the velocity, maybe some of that is from just coming back from the injury.

“Velocity is king. We all know that. But if he’s mid-90s he’s going to be just fine. He’s going to pitch well.”

Syndergaard said getting his delivery “right” is key. He works obsessively on those mechanics, throwing bullpen sessions on consecutive days at times, and says he already feels more “explosive” than he did at any point last year with the “confidence to be able to get hitters out with any pitch at any given time, trusting the conviction of every pitch.”

“The stuff isn’t where it was in the past, but my conviction and my competitive nature has skyrocketed even more than it was before,” he said.

Prior won’t take credit for that – or any radical changes in Syndergaard’s mechanics.

“He kind of saw the way he was throwing the ball last year – opening up a little early,” Prior said. “He wasn’t getting into the delivery that he used to have in New York. He kind of got away from that – maybe not by design, or maybe some of it by design. But he didn’t feel like he was able to pitch as effectively as he wanted to.

“We talked about his counter turn in his delivery, trying to stay on line a little more. Last year, he was kind of opening up. A lot of it he had identified himself before he even signed with the Dodgers. We just kind of reiterated, yeah, we see the same things and then we just started the process. … He had a good year last year. But obviously, he’s talked about how he wants to have a great year. And obviously, we want him to have a great year too.”