2021 - Michael King Performance Thread

[hardrain]

Nice beginning to his season....King became the first Yankee reliever to throw six innings and allow one hit or fewer since 1986. Retiring 16 straight men is also rather impressive.
He threw his sinker 62% percent of the time. per Baseball Savant. The Yanks will need a strong long man this season, maybe it will be King.

[Zimmer's Helmet]

Nice beginning to his season....King became the first Yankee reliever to throw six innings and allow one hit or fewer since 1986. Retiring 16 straight men is also rather impressive.
He threw his sinker 62% percent of the time. per Baseball Savant. The Yanks will need a strong long man this season, maybe it will be King.

He did a great job preserving the bullpen while keeping a potent Jays lineup in check.

If he can demonstrate consistency in this role, he may be the solution to the Cessa dilemma.

[ClownPickle]

Interesting stuff today. I've always loved Mike King as a prospect, however his lack of offspeed has always been a problem. You can't survive in this league without offspeed. His slider/cutter today was promising, but still skeptical about it. He didn't really get whiffs on it, more CS. He seems to be throwing a little harder and going for more horizontal and less vertical movement on his sinker.

[Melancynic]

He's got a sort of weird status in that he is like a guy you can bring in to bust in on RHH's to induce groundballs but I could see him being ambushed by patient LHH's who can take balls the other way and recognize his changeup. Seeing him top out at 96 a few times was some good ish.

[MyBoysKaosHavoK]

King was the only good thing about today's game. He was the only Yankees player who didn't sleep walk through the game....

[primetime714]

Haven’t ever seen his cutter/slider look that good, hopefully he can build off of this and keep some of that going. Can be a real solid innings eater if he has that pitch.

The young relievers stepping up along with Gary’s start have been the bright spots of the season so far.

[sjb23]

Pick one: Michael King or Nick Nelson?

I'm sitting on the fence. I kind of like them both and glad they're both on the team.

[Yankee Tripper]

Great outing, but I'm going to need to see a few more like that before I proclaim it more than fools gold.

[sd.]

Great outing, but I'm going to need to see a few more like that before I proclaim it more than fools gold.

Since I can't like posts yet I'm doing this.

[NelsonMuntz]

Interesting stuff today. I've always loved Mike King as a prospect, however his lack of offspeed has always been a problem. You can't survive in this league without offspeed. His slider/cutter today was promising, but still skeptical about it. He didn't really get whiffs on it, more CS. He seems to be throwing a little harder and going for more horizontal and less vertical movement on his sinker.

Good stuff. Seemed like the Blue Jays hitters didn’t know what to do with that cutter. Maybe they were expecting it to drop out of the zone like a slider. It kind of has slider velocity.

[sd.]

I will say, I'm shocked King wasn't sent down after that. I guess they can deal with the extra rest he needs the next few days because it is early in the season (and because King saved them from using anyone else on Sunday) but I thought for sure he was on the shuttle.

[primetime714]

I will say, I'm shocked King wasn't sent down after that. I guess they can deal with the extra rest he needs the next few days because it is early in the season (and because King saved them from using anyone else on Sunday) but I thought for sure he was on the shuttle.

Yea I was a little surprised too, but it makes total sense to go day-to-day and keeping that option backpocket if things go terribly wrong in the next two. Yesterday they knew they had Cessa and Chapman both of whom hadn't pitched. Today they have the whole rest of the bullpen who now hasn't pitched for a few days. Even with two of their long options down for today in King and Cessa, they've got Nelson who could easily give them 3 innings if needed. Leutge could probably go 2 or so. In a close game you've got all of your top guys ready behind Cole who you'd be surprised not to get 5+ out of. Day off on Thursday, King will be back in the mix for Friday. So only two games to get through without him with a well rested bullpen.

That's the impact of having so many quality multi-inning relievers, the shuttle becomes less necessary.

[sjb23]

Bump.

I'm pretty convinced that King will be more effective as a multi-inning reliever in the 2nd half - not as a starter. His pitches were pretty crisp yesterday. I wonder if guys like him do better as relievers because they're more aggressive, they know they can give it their all instead of holding back as a starter in order to try and go deeper into the game.

Chad Green. Luis Cessa, Jonathan Loaisiga seem to fit this mold.

[Portbb]

Great outing, but I'm going to need to see a few more like that before I proclaim it more than fools gold.

Don’t give up on 26 year olds.

[Donnybaseball72]

I only saw the recap but he looked downright filthy. Some say he's not a starter. I don't see why he wouldn't be next in line when we need a spot starter. It certainly won't be Gil or Garcia. So King or Schmidt.