Prospect King a surprising diamond in the rough

IN AN effort to do some 40-man roster cleanup last offseason, the Yankees traded Caleb Smith and Garrett Cooper to the Marlins. The main return was international slot money. But the Yankees also got a pitcher named Michael King.

He was drafted in the 12th round of 2016 and the Yankee amateur scouts liked him — by coincidence King had been one of those who helped give a tour of Boston College to the daughter of Damon Oppenheimer, the Yankees’ head of amateur scouting. Yankees scout Shawn Hill put in a positive report from 2017. The analytics department liked King’s ground-ball rates. And he would not have to be put on the 40-man roster last offseason or this coming one, which appealed to the Yanks.

But that did not add up to King climbing from High-A to Double-A to Triple-A this season while excelling on every level, going 9-5 in all with a 1.95 ERA with 8.5 strikeouts per nine innings and 1.6 walks. His 143 innings were the eighth most in the minors and his 50.3 percent ground-ball rate was 20th among those with 120 innings.

“He’s becoming a pretty exciting, valuable commodity,” Brian Cashman said. “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.”

Cashman added: “In fairness to the Marlins, what he has become is not what was traded. He has gotten better. They didn’t trade this guy. What they had and what he has become, he has jumped a category or two. It happens in development.”