Noah Syndergaard
Standing out at 23
Background
Noah Syndergaard is one of the few star pitchers for the New York Mets. He became well known across the board this year as not only an athlete, but a top competitor as well. What separates Syndergaard from his competition is his drive in and out of season, his natural God given ability, and the mindset to be the best not only physically but mentally.
Intelligence
Syndergaard displays his mental dominance on the diamond in two distinct ways, practical and overall intelligence.
Practical- This is his the overpowering part of his intelligence. He uses his practical intelligence to think ahead in certain pitch counts to determine which pitch will be most effective to a given hitter at any given time in an at-bat. Getting outs efficiently and often.
Overall intelligence- even though this isn't used nearly as much as his practical side, he demonstrates this when the ball is in play and he needs to make a hasty decision to see where the ball needs to go to get an out.
Competition
Noah Syndergaard competes against some of the greatest hitters in the National league such as Paul Goldschmidt and Giancarlo Stanton. Even though baseball is a game of failure, Syndergaard doesn't stick to the norm. He uses his practical intelligence to outsmart his opponents and then uses his God given talent to beat them physically as well. An example of this would be in the World Series when Syndergaard faced Lorenzo Cain of the Kamsas City Royals and got him to roll over into a double play to end the inning. He did this by beating him with a fastball, realizing that Cain would try to speed up his bat speed, Syndergaard threw a breaking ball to make Cain hit the ball off-balance.
The Unbeatable Alliance
Syndergaard and NYM closer, Jeurys Familia, are feared across the Natoinal league as one of the greatest pitching duos in baseball. In the regular season, Familia recorded 43 saves, many of them coming behind Syndergaard. The unlikely duo works in harmony... Syndergaard starts the game and beats the team up, tiring them out and out thinking them more often than not. Then when Syndergaard gets tired and the game is on the line, Familia comes in to save the day and finishes the job, giving both players the numbers to improve their performance on the score card for the night. One example of this being game 2 of the NLCS when Syndergaard got his first postseason win against the Cubs.
Relating Back To Transcendentalism
Transcendentalists would admire Syndergaard because of his simplicity and his strive for greatness through hard work. This can be seen in many ways including his lifestyle habits and his vigorous workout routines he implements throughout the year to keep in shape and improve his game.
Outliers
Gladwells purpose in chapters 3 & 4 is to open the readers mind to new ways of thinking and show that lots of people are intelligent, it comes down to their style of intelligence. Gladwell persuades the reader by giving deeply researched analytics and by stating real world examples to which his theories apply. I agree with Gladwell because I also think it's not how smart you are, it's what kind of smart you are. Some knowledge may be more useful in a situation that an ow score won't get you through. My outlier proves Gladwell's points because he demonstrates the types of intelligence that he states and does it so that it seems effortless.