Most of us have labeled Seaver King at best a disappointment so far in his career, and at worst a failed pick, after getting picked 10th a couple years ago, having now seen the glittering debut performance of possible Nats picks Trey Yesevage or the high prospect ranks of the likes of Braden Montgomery.
But, he’s destroying the ball in the AFL, a league that’s “supposed” to basically be like playing in a AA-level all star game every day.
What’s going on in Arizona?
MLB.com’s Sam Dykstra had the following to say in today’s “Early Standouts from the AFL” email newsletter about King:
Seaver King peaking late: Few Fall Leaguers needed a good autumn as much as the Nationals’ 2024 first-rounder and No. 7-ranked prospect.
While other members of his Draft class surged to the Majors this summer, King hit just .244/.294/.337 with six homers in 125 games between High-A Wilmington and Double-A Harrisburg — two notably pitcher-friendly ballparks. Here in the desert, the right-handed-hitting shortstop has looked much more like his Wake Forest self. He’s 13-for-31 (.419) with two homers, five doubles and only three strikeouts through seven games.
King has been routinely on fastballs, batting .533 against them in the early going while he shoots balls to the gaps. He could stand to pull the ball a little better with his homers going to right-center and right, but with an early hard-hit rate of 71.4 percent and three barrels in 14 batted balls, he is finding the right part of the bat generally in the early small sample. Add in good speed — he has two recorded Sprint Speeds above 30 ft/sec — and King is pushing his stock back up headed into his second offseason.
A discussion about Park Factors in our Minor League system
We know Wilmington is a super pitcher’s park .. I’m not sure I realized that Harrisburg was as well. I went digging for Park factors; here’s Baseball America’s 2024 Minor League Park factor data. Here’s all our parks in one spot:
| Team | Level | Org | Runs PF | Runs Mult | HR PF | HR Mult | wOBA PF | wOBA Mult |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rochester | AAA | WSH | 86 | 0.931 | 75 | 0.873 | 93 | 0.963 |
| Harrisburg | AAA | WSH | 88 | 0.939 | 107 | 1.037 | 95 | 0.974 |
| Wilmington | High-A | WSH | 93 | 0.965 | 84 | 0.922 | 98 | 0.988 |
| Fredericksburg | Low-A | WSH | 97 | 0.984 | 104 | 1.018 | 100 | 1.001 |
So, basically, every one of our full season parks is a pitcher’s park. And, as you move up the chain, each higher level’s park is actually harder from a wOBA perspective than the last. Wilmington, which we keep hearing is a death valley for hitters … is really just death for homers (which explains why our team leader in high-A for homers was just 7 this year). It’s 98 for wOBA in general. Harrisburg is actually worse for Runs and wOBA; it just has a spike for HRs due to its pretty easy pull power alleys (325 down the lines, 350 to LCF and RCF).
Aside: When looking at this HR park factor for AAA, by the way, it definitely puts a different spin on the 2025 HR production of the likes of Schnell (21 hrs in 95 AAA games) or Pinckney (20 hrs in 125 AAA games).
Anyway, back to King; We also read in another blog a quote from King from a fellow draftee prospect about approach and patience, something that my fellow Nats bloggers have used to basically draw the conclusion that the entire Nats player development staff is incompetent because King got a tip from a buddy and has had a nice first week in the AFL.
I like that he’s showing power to the opposite field, AND he’s showing speed to the point where a prospect maven is pointing it out. I’m not going to suddenly jump the guy 10 spots in my prospect rankings … but something tells me MLBpipeline may, based on this report.
Can’t wait to see where he goes from here. But i’ll ask this question tot he group? If he finishes the AFL with his current slash line (.419/.486/.774) will it change your mind on his prognosis? He’s only about 7 games through a 30 game season.
I mean, that’s great. But even a full season is only 30 games. I’d love to see what he does next April (the minors start a week after the bigs now, right?) If he’s got an OPS over 800 on May 1, I’ll feel a lot better about things.
Kevin R
21 Oct 25 at 3:10 pm
Jackson Cluff hit .214/.306/.289 in 2021 in the minors, and somewhat inexplicably got named to the AFL that year. He proceeded to smash the cover off the ball in the AFL, hitting .342/.432/.456, improving in basically every metric possible. Riding this wave of prolific offensive production, he followed up in 2022 with a line remarkably similar to that of his 2021 production, and a line of .194/.277/.309. Cluff has now played 6 seasons in the minors and never come to within .100 OPS points of his AFL performance.
More recently, Robert Hassell also came out of the gates mashing last AFL. Through his first 6 games, he was hitting .400/.504/.740 (look familiar?). Over his remaining 16 games, Hassell cooled off mightily, batting a pedestrian .234/.329/.406. On the whole, it was a very successful AFL with a total line of .281/.360/.517, but it’s clear that Hassell is not the 1.244 OPS kind of guy.
That doesn’t mean King is also fated to never improve on his poor 2024-2025 seasons, but let’s not get too carried away with a great week from King. With that said, I hope some scouts and other prospect watchers fall head over heels for King. He (and this franchise) needs a boost of prospect helium, undeserved or not.
Will
21 Oct 25 at 3:49 pm
I think everyone here has been around the block enough times not to overreact to a couple of hot weeks, and even if King keeps it up through the rest of the AFL, I don’t think I’d raise him much in my rankings. He’d still be a strong FV40 – a legit prospect, but not a top prospect.
I pretty much see it like Kevin does – if he finishes out the AFL strong AND then starts next year with a strong 4-6 weeks, that’s when I’d be inclined to raise my expectations for him and bump him up to an FV45 (so like one step below the back end of the top 100). Right now, I have Morales, Clemmey, and Bennett in that tier, for comparison.
SMS
22 Oct 25 at 6:06 pm
I just watched 3 games in Arizona Fall League and wrote a little about it. It’s hit-or-miss as to who you will see play. I ended up getting 2 games of Seaver King, Ethan Petry, and Sam Petersen, and 1 appearance by Jared Simpson.
Not the best timing to see King or Petersen. Great timing to see Petry.
My motivation was to time it with Wilson Ramos on his 1st day in the MLB Coach’s Program.
Bonus was watching the check swing video review challenge system used for the 1st time. That was wild. I had a camera man with me who got some of it on video.
So on King. I got to see him ground one softly that I thought he would beat out for an infield single and he didn’t quite show the burst of speed I was hoping to see. Nasim Nunez beats that throw.
Petry had a Web Gem on defense, 3 walks, a HBP, and 2 singles driving in 3 runs (should have been 4 but the 3rd base coach held the runners with bases loaded and Petry was held to a single). He legged out an inside grounder that could have been a single but ruled an error on a bobble. He then stole 2nd base which blew my mind. They had him playing RF both games. That surprised me to see him in RF. Petersen was in LF. King was SS and DH in his 2 games.
So while I wanted to see King ball out, it was a small sample size kind of disappointment. That happens. Simpson was really good. 3 Ks in 2.0 scoreless innings and he will be a player to keep an eye out for 2026.
I will head back there in a couple of weeks.
Ghost of Steve M.
23 Oct 25 at 8:40 am
In the usual “reverse mojo” fashion of writing about Nats’ players/prospects, King DH’d yesterday … and went 0-3 with a walk and 3 Ks. DOOM!
OK, it only dropped him to a .351 average and a 1.093 OPS, but let’s get back to trashing him to get the reverse mojo going in a better direction.
John C.
23 Oct 25 at 11:08 am
Speaking of King getting some hype, FanGraphs just gave him a boost for his 7 game hot streak: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/arizona-fall-league-prospect-stock-check-in/
“King, the 10th pick in the 2024 draft, posted a .244/.294/.337 line combined at High- and Double-A in 2025, good for only an 87 wRC+. Scouts think his swing still needs polish to truly take full advantage of his athleticism, but King has looked awesome on both sides of the ball out here, and has made it easier to dismiss his 2025 mediocrity as anomalistic. “
Will
24 Oct 25 at 8:07 am
Keith Law is now getting in on the King hype train: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6738529/2025/10/23/seaver-kind-esmerlyn-valdez-arizona-fall-league-hitters-scouting/
His article–which reveals he spoke to King himself–has the tidbit that a specific (unnamed) Nats coach encouraged King to change his swing to “to pull the ball in the air more.”
Who knows what to make of all this? It strikes me as a bit too convenient an explanation for King’s AFL outburst. At the same time, Law has always been a King backer and intimated earlier this season that he thought King’s swing had changed for the worse.
My view: we should be good Bayesians and update our priors on King, but we shouldn’t update them too much. King’s AFL performance is good, and the numbers count. But we’re still a long way from top-100 prospect status, I think. Let’s hope King’s improvement is durable and not just a hot streak.
Derek
24 Oct 25 at 10:12 am
If King is actively doing something different mechanically, something which previously resulted in sustained success, that’s a lot more significant than just a hot 7 game streak. But let’s see. Since this was posted King has gone 1 for 10, so was it some real adaptation? Luck? Both/neither? It’s why sample sizes are a thing. Still, Law’s reporting is worrying, especially because that coach has so far apparently managed to avoid the firing cull.
Will
24 Oct 25 at 10:43 am
I think it’s interesting but not surprising that EL and KL – the two public prospect evaluators who rely most heavily on their own independent scouting – are the quickest to believe in King. I’ll also point out that they’ve both been pretty high on King from the jump, and never really came off him despite on his unimpressive 2025. FG, for example, had him 5th in the system with an FV 45 before the AFL (presumably his new FV45+ ranking will have him 4th). And the athletic had him over Susana and Sykora last spring, and will probably have King 2nd behind Willits later this offseason.
I’m more in line with the consensus here and don’t plan on extrapolating much from 50 PAs.
SMS
24 Oct 25 at 12:09 pm
Yes, it’s important to note that those who previously believed in King are quick to jump back on that bandwagon.
FWIW, MLB Pipeline has also gotten aboard the King hype train, recognizing him for the second straight week in their stand out summary: https://www.mlb.com/news/arizona-fall-league-top-performers-week-2-2025
Even if King isn’t able to sustain this pace, I’m really happy that he’s getting a lot of recognition, which is how you can extract more value from prospects. And with MLB now formally recognizing these prospect sites (for example, ROY and compensation prizes are based on these same prospect lists), there is actual concrete value to be gained from hype like this.
Will
24 Oct 25 at 5:15 pm
On King and the claim that a coach told him to alter his approach … Honestly, I just don’t understand professional instruction sometimes. I mean, the team has to know who this person was and what their recommendation “did” to their 1st round pick. How do they still have a job? You draft a kid because he produced in college using the same approach he’s used all his life … then you decide that approach is wrong and needs to be changed?
Todd Boss
27 Oct 25 at 8:42 am
Without getting bogged down into the failure that has been Nats player development, I think this raises a really interesting and positive story about the Red Sox, and thus tranferred to the Nats.
I don’t remember who it was who said this about scouting, but they talked about how good teams drafted “types”, i.e. rough, toolsy high schoolers or very polished college bats. Whatever, but you identify a profile that you prefer and recruit players that fit that model, because you know how to work with those profiles. Another way (that isn’t mutually exclusive) is that you scout players with identified flaws that you know you can fix. Sometimes this might be launch angle, or identifying breaking balls. Whatever. If you know you have coaches who can teach these skills, then you go after guys who have these flaws that you have confidence you can fix.
The Red Sox did this supremely well with Kristian Campbell. He was a pretty mediocre prospect at the time of drafting, and went in the late 4th round to slot. But the Red Sox (and hopefully Toboni) saw a profile they were good at developing and knew exactly what they needed to do to “fix” him. They even had a developed plan for him right from the start. Here’s a quote from Campbell:
““Pretty much (the Red Sox) told me what I needed to work on last year when I first got drafted. I’ve been working on it for a year, a year and a half now, and steadily I’ve been getting better and better throughout the season, specifically hitting the ball in the air,” Campbell told NESN’s Tom Caron on Wednesday at Red Sox spring training in Fort Myers.”
The Sox drafted Campbell with a plan, and it worked spectacularly well. Within a season Campbell went from an afterthought to the #1 prospect in baseball. THAT is player development.
It often feels like the Nats draft players without any idea of how to extract value from them. They pivot in player profiles, and the changes/tweaks they propose don’t work (see King and whatever they’ve been doing with Green in XST, just as two recent high profile examples). The past is the past, and let’s hope Toboni and his Sox pals bring a lot more examples like Campbell, and fewer like King’s.
Will
27 Oct 25 at 10:39 am
@Will; fair points all. Luckily, it seems to me that basically the entire scouting/drafting infrastructure that led us to the likes of massive failures like Romero, or Green … is now gone.
Well, that is to say, i’m sorry they’re out of a job. I’m sure they’re good people and all, perhaps who struggled to work within a system or a paradigm handed down by the bosses, which hasn’t worked in a decade. We’re well aware of Rizzo’s “reputation” for drafting … college guys, “famous” guys, Boras clients. But Rizzo by many accounts (like many GMs) was only involved in the first couple of picks due to money/visibility.
Todd Boss
27 Oct 25 at 2:09 pm