PEORIA, Ariz. — It was understood that Frankie Montas would begin last season on the injured list, and before the Yankees’ season opener, he was joined by Carlos Rodon and Luis Severino.
So Michael King went into Aaron Boone’s office late last spring training. In his memory, pitching coach Matt Blake and bullpen coach Mike Harkey were there, too. In his pitching soul, King believed he was a starter and here was the opening. He wanted to make it clear that he was different mentally, physically and in repertoire than in 2021 when he had last started.
The righty was coming off a right elbow fracture that had cost him the final two-plus months of the 2022 season and reasoned it would be easier to recalibrate on the schedule of a starter. “I was trying to work the system,” he concedes now.
King said Boone worried about jumping him from 51 innings in 2022 to 150 and also removing him from the hybrid relief role in which he was so valuable. King left the office, saying that next time there is an opening to keep him in mind.
That came in August. This time after Nestor Cortes made one start off the IL and went right back on with a shoulder ailment. King described “a great relationship” with Boone and said, Boone looked at him walk into the office and mockingly said, “What the hell is this about?” King offered that the innings buildup was now off the table, since he was at 60 and would not have to throw 150 if he started the rest of the way.
San Diego Padres pitcher Michael King speaks to media during the first day of spring training. AP “It was our joke, he told me I could be an opener because he knew I didn’t want to be an opener, I wanted to be a starter,” King said. “But I knew he just wanted to slowly build me up. He also knew that every time there was a starting opportunity, I was in there saying just consider me.”
King made an opener two-inning start on Aug. 8 and then went into the rotation full time on Aug. 24. From there to the end of the season — in his eight outings — he was one of the best starters in the game. Among starters with at least 30 innings from then forward, King’s 1.88 ERA was eighth best and his 31.4 strikeout rate was 10th best.
Yet, King said no one told him he would definitely be in the 2024 Yankee rotation. He was preparing for it, but also was savvy enough to see the Yanks would be in for Yoshinobu Yamamoto and that the math could work against him or a bad spring could work against him or his excellence in his relief role could work against him — King was fifth in the majors in pen appearances of four outs or more in 2023 and had a 1.26 ERA over 35 ²/₃ innings in his 15 relief outings of two innings or more.
But while King’s end-of-season excellence did not assure him a rotation berth with the Yankees, it sure helped land Juan Soto. Because to trade the hitting star, the Padres needed pitching. Lots of it. But they also wanted someone who could go right into the rotation with upside. That was not prospect Drew Thorpe, who the Padres were insistent upon, but likely has to go to Triple-A first. Or Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez, who might round out the rotation and whose stuff San Diego really likes.
Michael King had a strong second half of 2023 for the Yankees. Robert Sabo for NY Post “When you look at the price of pitching now, I think for us King stood out because he was dominant in a pen role last year and then went into the rotation and maintained his stuff and was one of the better starters in the league down the stretch,” Padres GM A.J. Preller said. “We’ll see if he makes the transition full time to the starting role, but it’s three-plus pitches with command.”
‘I think for him the sky’s the limit,’ said Kyle Higashioka, the fifth piece in the Soto trade. “He’s got the stuff for this and I think he will have the endurance.”
Durability is an issue. The Padres transitioned Seth Lugo from a Mets reliever to 26 starts and 146¹/₃ innings that helped net him a three-year, $45 million free-agent deal with the Royals. King said the Padres mentioned Lugo. But King will be 29 in May and a free agent after the 2025 season. So he wants more, thinking 180 innings and said San Diego officials told him they will monitor his health while not forging an ininngs cap.
Which will lead to an interesting season-long battle to watch. Will anyone behind Gerrit Cole — Cortes, Rodon, Clarke Schmidt or Marcus Stroman — actually outperform King as a starter? It is not farfetched to believe he would have emerged as the Yankees’ No. 2 starter — but this was the Soto price.
“I am not fully proven, what did I have, nine starts last year?” King said. “I love New York. I loved the relationships I had. So when I first got traded, I was sad. Then I started to talk to people about the opportunity and it’s just so much better for my career in terms of development because I want to establish myself as a starter and I am getting these reps in that I don’t know that I would have been given as a Yankee because if I had a couple of bad outings, they know what I had in the bullpen and they could say you are better out of the bullpen. Instead here, if I have a few bad ones, I have a little bit more leeway.”
So King went from lobbying Boone to a boon for his career.
