The Rise of the King

 By: Nick Kazandjian

The Yankees have struck gold again after they made a trade this summer that seemed to go completely unnoticed.  In November, the Yankees sent IF Garrett Cooper and LHP Caleb Smith to the Marlins in exchange for RHP Mike King and international money.  Since his arrival, the Boston College product, has quickly flown through the Yankees’ farm system. At the time of the trade, King was viewed as a pitcher who the team expected to come along slowly. One who could possibly be up in Triple-A come this time next year. However, it seems that he has been a pleasant surprise.  

From Warwick, Rhode Island, King pitched at Warwick Continental Little League, where I had the opportunity to play against him, pitched 4 years at Rhode Island powerhouse Bishop Hendricken High School and then went onto Boston College where he held a 8-4 record with a 3.29 ERA.  He logged 103 innings and struck out 64 batters. Before being traded to the Yankees, King was selected in the 12th round with the 353rd selection in the 2016 Draft by the Marlins.

He kicked off the season in Tampa with the A+ Tarpoons and he used the small amount of time he was there to his advantage.  While he posted only a 1-3 record, his stats showed he was more than dominating the competion. In 7 starts, he pitched 40.1 innings, striking out 45, and holding a 1.79 ERA and 1.06 WHIP.  The Yankees decided at that point he needed more of a challenge and so his first real test came in AA with the Trenton Thunder as he was promoted midseason.

King was nothing short of dominant in AA as well.  In 11 starts with the Thunder, King pitched 80.1 Innings with 76 Strikeouts while holding a 2.09 ERA and 0.95 WHIP.  King had dominant performances. Most notably against the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, when pitched a CG 3-hit shutout in a 6-0 win for the Thunder.  He struck out a career high 11 guys in the effort and put his ability on display that night.

On August 4th, King received one of the biggest calls of his young career, leading to a promotion to play AAA with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders.  King has been in AAA for only 5 starts but has absolutely dominated and earned International League (IL) Player of the Month for the month of August. He has tossed 33 innings with 27 K’s allowing only 4 ER so far to keep his ERA at a beautiful 1.09.  He also holds an extremely dominant WHIP of 0.63.

In his last start, King pitched 6 innings of perfect baseball with 6 K’s before being pulled for reasons unknown, most likely watching innings.  In the game before, King carried a no-hitter into the 7th inning, but was pulled after giving up a hit to the first batter of the inning. He finished that game posting 6.1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 7 K, 2 BB.  Yankees GM Brian Cashman had this to say about King, “He’s becoming a pretty exciting, valuable commodity. We had a ton of requests on him (at the trade deadline). We had a few teams tell us he would go into their rotation now.”

King has a 92-94 MPH 2 Seam Fastball which has really strong movement which really helps him induce tons of ground balls.  King is more of a pitch to contact type pitcher which reflects in his great WHIP and ERA numbers. He also carries a strong moving slider at 83-84 MPH and a nice 80-82 MPH changeup.  

There is not much video on King to show but here is a video from a recent start being able to show off his pitches:

http:/https://youtu.be/s78fgAUFU74

The thing that King does so beautifully is mix his pitches well and hit his spots.  Yankees starting Catcher Gary Sanchez had the opportunity to catch King in his rehab back from a hamstring injury and when asked if King can do it in the MLB, Sanchez had this to say, “If he keeps hitting his corners, hitting his spots and throwing the ball low over the zone with movement of his fastball, he can get anybody out with that.”

King has been extremely impressive and will continue out the season with the Railriders as rule wise it wouldn’t make sense to call up King this September.  He will likely be battling for a spot in the rotation come Spring Training next season but is for sure a prospect to watch out for. The Yankees have hit on another prospect and this time it’s Mike King.