Tyler King — Exactly where he should be

As Tyler King sat in the Republic High School athletic director’s office, just hours before a trigonometry test, he shook his head a good half-dozen times in a span of five seconds. Wearing a Navy blue American Eagle polo shirt with his hair groomed perfectly, King has always had the uncanny ability to ooze confidence without coming across as the cocky jock. In street clothes, he doesn’t look like someone who could embarrass you with a baseball.

But he is.

See, for the last few years — especially this entire school year — something has been hovering above him, seemingly attached to his shoulders. Once he stopped shaking his head, he opened his mouth and with one answer, calmly beamed a sun ray through the odd, hazy cloud hanging above him.

• No, he’s not going to be the next Scott Elbert.
• No, he doesn’t know if he’s going to grow taller.
• No, he he won’t be disappointed if he doesn’t get drafted.
• No, he won’t be disappointed if he has to go to college.
• No, he’s not disappointed in any of his young baseball career.

The fact he has to even answer the last is absurd, but that’s the perception that King has endured. The left-handed pitcher who might have been the best in the Ozarks — not just this season, but for the past few — set the bar so unrealistically high, he has had to fight against a reputation he had no chance of attaining.

“I knew that wasn’t going to happen,” King said in response to the comparisons to Scott Elbert, a Seneca grad who was a first-round MLB draft pick in 2004. “I don’t really worry about it. I just go out and play my game. Getting drafted would be great, but I have [a scholarship to go to the University of] Nebraska. I try not to put too much thought into it, really. It’s something I can’t control.”

But just because he doesn’t put much thought into it doesn’t mean the perception that he’s been a disappointment of sorts doesn’t exist. At the end of last week, TAGsgf.com received a tweet from a Twitter follower saying they’d heard King was overrated, yet had never seen him play. And just like he would react when he would come into a game as a youth player out of the bullpen, or setting the saves record for the Midwest Nationals, the top-flight youth-development team in the Ozarks, he has treated the perception like just another tough spot to get out of. It’s just another cloud he has to navigate with sunshine.

A whole different Area Code

On the way to the Midwest Nationals tryout following his sophomore year, King’s father, Marty, reassured his then 5-foot-10, 175-pound son. The duo had always set their sights high, but he wasn’t sure which team he make. In the father’s mind, it was worth the shot, even though there was a likely chance he wouldn’t be good enough and would play with the kids his age.

“He’s always been playing up (in age), so that was what he needed to do,” Marty King said. “I wasn’t sure he would make it, but he needed to try. I wanted him to have something to shoot for in the future.”

Not only did King make the Ozarks’ top elite summer team, he was assigned to the Nationals’ Senior Level squad as an April-birthday 16-year-old. Many of his new peers were 18. He wasn’t grizzled enough to make the starting rotation, but he carved out a niche as the team’s closer with a baseball-pleasing formula:

Guts + lefthanded = Potential.

By the end of the season, King owned the Nationals saves record with 7 and developed a reputation for a young kid who had the guile to navigate the big moment and the tools to execute the pitches. It validated the hunch his father had for him and looked like the same kid who used to do those same things to grade-school batters. Impressed with his combination of mound presence, natural tools and young age, Nationals founder and coach Randy Merryman decided King was ready for an tryout for the Area Codes Games, an MLB-sponsored national all-star event that propels kids onto nationwide radars.

Just like that Nationals tryout, King made the Chicago White Sox team, which represents an assortment of Midwestern states. Just getting his name on the roster ignited his national reputation like a lighter fluid-doused charcoal pit and when he didn’t embarrass himself out there, he instantly latched on the forefront of scouts’ brains, pens and fingertips.

A 2008 scouting report read:

Tyler King is a 2010 LHP with a 5’10”, 175 lb. frame from Republic, MO. … (Fastball is 86 mph) … Athletic frame, lean, room for continued development. 3/4 release on mound, well balanced delivery, high leg kick, very good changing speeds, good extension out front, pitchability, dirty (changeup) with good arm action, also 2-8 (o’clock) big breaking (curveball), lots of defensive swings against, shows good feel for (curveball) and (changeup), athletic fielding position.

But more importantly, scouts and the media instantly had a regional comparison for King — Scott Elbert. Why? A Seneca grad, Elbert was the only previous local high school baseball player that made the Area Codes as a sophomore and junior. Many thought his 6-1, 215-pound frame was attainable, and, of course, both were lefthanded pitchers. Elbert ended up being the 17th selection in the 2004 MLB draft’s first round by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Once King came along, the comparisons stuck to him, no matter how unfair, and the context was set in stone.

At the time, King’s fastball was clocked in the low 80s and he possessed a makings of a dangerous curveball and changeup. But he didn’t have the 90s heater that Elbert developed, nor did he have Elbert’s slightly larger frame. But what King did have was potential. There was time to get bigger, get better and throw harder. It’s that potential that both helped and hurt him.

“He had a lot to live up to, that’s for sure,” Midwest Nationals coach Randy Merryman said.

Spitting image, sort of

If you’ve met Marty King, you’ll remember him for the rest of your life.

He’s big. He’s loud. He’s charismatic. He speaks his mind. During games, he never sits down and he’s rarely close to the stands. He seemingly has conversations with everyone, and has a joke for all of them. Likeable doesn’t seem like a generous enough term for TK’s dad.

Like many sports-loving fathers, Marty wanted a lefthanded-pitching son. While most of those fathers are halfway joking, and willing to take a chance with nature, Marty was 100 percent serious. By 16 months old, Tyler King was taking grounders with a glove on his right hand. To this day, Tyler does everything with his right hand — eat, write, bat — except pitch.

“It’s just natural. I do everything else right, but I pitch lefthanded,” Tyler King said. “I fool around every once in a while, but there’s no way I could pitch righthanded.”

It turned out Tyler had an aptitude for pitching. He was the star on every team he was on, and normally he was so good he played up in age. When he was 10, teams with 12-year-olds wanted him. When the King family moved from Pleasant Hill to Republic at the beginning of sixth grade he plugged right in, and Marty was right there with them. A coach of his son’s teams, Marty was instrumental in pushing Tyler, not giving him empty pats on the back, but providing him praise when it was deserved and criticism that showed him the value of serious competition.

“The biggest problem with a lot of kids is they get a false sense of security,” Marty King said. “They need to play against the best competition possible. I’ve always told him, if he works at it 100 percent, I will do everything in my power to help him achieve what he wants. And he’s always done that.”

While Tyler acquired most of Marty’s charismatic personality and adapted it to high school life, the one thing that Marty hasn’t given his son is his size. Marty looks like a 6-foot-6 linebacker. Tyler looks like a stocky defensive back. If you saw him on the street, you wouldn’t know he was a lefthanded pitcher with a wicked assortment of breaking pitches.

Tyler swears his lack of size, and most of all, lack of respect from MLB scouts hasn’t discouraged him. After all, Johan Santana is 6-foot, 210-pounds. Billy Wagner is 5-10, 200 pounds. Both are multiple-time all-star lefthanded pitchers, but for every one of them there are a dozen guys who just weren’t big enough.

“The thing about being small, a lot of pro scouts aren’t thrilled about you. They like tall and lanky. I’m neither of those,” Tyler King joked. “I think the reasoning is, being bigger, they suppose you’re more durable. Will he wear down? It’s all about projectability. They see a guy and feel like they can add velocity to him. For me, they assume I can’t do those things.”

Big Red

Fresh off his new found infamy and helium-inflated expectations, King dominated as a high school junior. In high school ball, he improved on his sophomore numbers of 92 strikeouts in 67 innings by pitching 64 2/3 innings with 109 Ks. He still maintained his sub 1.30 ERA, but his fastball crept to the mid 80s and his breaking pitches became slightly more refined. To local hitters, he was still Sandy Koufax. His real progress would be shown again with the Midwest Nationals.

King graduated to the Nationals starting rotation and looked the part. He won 8 games and allowed only 4.1 hits per game. But his fastball was still only in the mid 80s, and he was still just shy of six feet tall. The results were there, but the flashy stuff — the radar gun readings, his frame — was underwhelming. The scope of recruiting was still impressive for anyone from the Ozarks, but it wasn’t the nationwide, superstar celebrity status that many expected.

Instead of improving leaps and bounds, the scouting report looked very similar to the previous year’s:

Tyler King is a 2010 LHP with a 6’0”, 185 lb. frame from Republic HS. … Medium athletic build, some strength. Nice repeatable delivery, uses lower half well, high 3/4′s release. FB was 82-84 mph with arm side run in the Metrodome. Curveball and change up are both good pitches, hard spin on (curveball) with downer break, change fades well with good arm speed at release. Shows pitchability, mixes up pitches, locations, needs to fine tune fastball command. We have seen him at higher velocity. Excellent student.

In the end, Tyler received scholarship offers from Missouri, Missouri State and Nebraska. Born and raised a Mizzou fan, and being a first-hand witness to what Missouri State and pitching coach Paul Evans has been able to do with hurlers, many figured he would stay within the Show-Me State borders. But, he said he felt compelled to attend Nebraska.

“I just felt like they would do the best to prepare me for professional baseball,” Tyler King said. “When Joba Chamberlain showed up, he was throwing mid 80s. When he was done, he was one of the best pitchers in baseball. That’s where I want to be.”

He claims that leaving the state wasn’t a reflection of any pressure he faced here locally, instead a result of how impressed he was with Nebraska football games, Chamberlain and facilities.

Staying away

While his results on the mound couldn’t be questioned, many scouts felt they had Tyler King pegged. They knew exactly what he was and it wasn’t what they’d hoped. He didn’t grow up to be as tall as his father. He hadn’t yet regularly increased the velocity into the 90s. In other words, not only did Major League Baseball teams  — especially the 15 that have maintained contact with him since the Area Codes experience — think he wasn’t worth a top-round draft pick, they weren’t for sure that he was worth the money to try to talk him out of his Nebraska scholarship.

That’s a recipe for MLB draft disaster. The money for an MLB draft pick is detemined by a sliding scale called slot money. Each year, MLB releases an expected dollar amount that a team should recommend as a signing bonus. Generally, for players who are taken later than the 15th round, the money isn’t worth turning down whatever their college scholarships pay. In King’s case, Nebraska is worth significantly more than what something below rounds 15 and beyond could pay him. Local fans have seen it happen with local pitchers like Tyler Clark (Catholic, Mizzou) and J.C. Casey (Missouri State). Both had, at least, Round 20 or 30 talent, but each were taken in the late 40s. They both attended school.

When this past season came around, soreness in his arm forced him to miss a few starts. When he did make his debut on April 9 in a Red and Blue Classic game at Glendale, a Toronto Blue Jays scout clocked him at 91 mph. It was the hardest he’d thrown in his life. He struck out 13 batters over 6 innings while beating Blue Springs. But just a few starts later he was back to pitching in the low 80s. He got hit around a few times. Scouts stopped coming to his games. The word was out.

That Area Codes lefty from a few seasons ago hasn’t grown and isn’t throwing any harder.

During a loss at home to Nixa on May 4, he lasted only four innings, allowing six earned runs on eight hits. The only scout in attendance was Merryman, his Nationals coach who also does scouting for the Texas Rangers. It was the final sign that King’s status as an elite pitching prospect was over. As shrewd a kid as they come, King already saw the writing on the wall. Merryman summed up the situation.

“He’s just kind of plateaued,” said Merryman, who also coached Elbert with the Nationals. “He has to come to the realization that he didn’t become that 90s-plus (mph) guy. Now he’s got to really learn how to pitch. On the bright side, there are a lot of lefthanded pitchers that throw 86-88 just like he does that are in the big leagues.

“He’ll be a very good college player and will probably be a pro baseball player,” Merryman said. “But, for right now, he’s going to go to college. It’s not what everyone thought was going to happen a few years ago.”

Most scouts agree King won’t get drafted. Baseball America writer Jim Callis, who reports on draft prospects for most of the Midwest is hearing the same information.

“He might not even get drafted,” Callis said.

Faith

Alan Mahaffey believes in Tyler King.

A former Kickapoo southpaw who had Division I aspirations, Mahaffey left the Chiefs as a self-described 6-2 dumpy kid who threw 78-79 mph. But, when he left Three Rivers Community College, he was an in-shape 6-2 and was throwing 88-89 mph. Mahaffey ended up at Arkansas, becoming one of the team’s best pitchers. He was a 16th round draft pick in the 1995 draft and spent six years in the Minnesota Twins system, advancing to Triple-A. He was even a Rule V pick by the Chicago Cubs in 1998, meaning he wasn’t protected by the Twins’ 40-man roster and the Cubs thought he could make the big league club. Just like the Twins camps he attended, he never made it to the big leagues.

And while he never had King’s marketability, as a local pitching instructor, Mahaffey’s been a handy resource for the kid who has battled against lofty expectations. He has helped him understand mechanics, mound presence and strategy. He also understands that lefthanders sometimes develop later in baseball years than righties. He’s been realistic yet supportive of Tyler at times when others were frustrated, or just didn’t understand. He’s been a voice of reason.

“He’s definitely got a chance to be a good college pitcher and he can be a pro prospect,” Mahaffey said. “He’s a lefty that throws three pitches for strikes. Once he’s around baseball 24/7, his stuff will continue to get better. He can still put on muscle and he can continue to fine tune his mechanics and his repeatability.”

When Tyler has a pitching problem he consults Mahaffey. He helps refine his leg kick and helps keep his windup closed. He correctly positions his shoulders. All of it makes the fastball zip, the curveball bite and the changeup deceive. He knows how badly King wants to win, and to not only prove people wrong, but prove him right.

“He’s a down-to-earth kid,” Mahaffey said. “He’s a bulldog. I don’t think it’s fazed him. I think he just wants to be as good as he can be.”

Finale

Through his senior season, King admitted the combined weight of the upcoming MLB draft, the public’s perception of him and his high school baseball team and his own expectations were like a cape of paperweights. After the Nixa start, he went back to Mahaffey to once again fine-tune his mechanics.

He came back for a regular-season tuneup game against Mount Vernon and dominated for four shutout innings, striking out seven. It set up a showdown with rival Willard in a first round district game in Carthage. What happened was the epitome of King’s career and Republic’s senior season.

He carved up Willard’s lineup, going the distance while striking out 11 batters. But the Tiger offense was quiet and the lone ball that left the Republic infield ended up being an error, costing Tyler and the Tigers a 1-0 loss. That sick feeling of defeat hurt, there’s no doubt. He knew what people would say. They’d talk about how that Area Codes kid couldn’t make it out of the first round of districts.

If he’s so good, how could that happen?

He’s been down that road before. But he swears he has never felt better than when he took the mound that day. Remember that velocity during his first start? It was back. While there was no radar gun to validate it, he felt like it was the hardest he has ever thrown, maybe even breaking 91 mph. His breaking stuff broke harder. For the first time all season he felt dominant. With the loss in the rearview mirror, he could see the big picture, something many others have had a hard time making out.

“I was extremely happy for myself. With my mechanics as off as they were, I began to worry about how the summer was going to go. How Nebraska was going to go. But once I got it straightened out (with Mahaffey), I’d never felt that good before,” Tyler said. “Now I know I can deal with all of it and go out there and be effective.”

Tyler begins Midwest Nationals season this weekend at the College of the Ozarks. While some will see it as a last hurrah for MLB scouts to get the clearest picture of him, King’s not concerned. He’s got Nebraska. He’s got that last high school start. Does he have millions of dollars, which were hastily forecasted a few years ago? No, but he’s got his confidence back and he knows what he is — a kid that has a chance to be a big league pitcher, just like he would write about when he was an elementary student. He’ll just have to go to college to do it. He could still be an all-star like Johan Santana or Billy Wagner. He could be Scott Elbert and be stuck in Triple-A six years after he was a first-round pick. He could be Alan Mahaffey and be the late bloomer who never quite makes the big leagues.

But most importantly, he will be Tyler King. He still has the guts, and he’s not a disappointment. Instead, he’s been able to grasp perspective that few 18-year-old baseball players can. It’s rare for a kid who was a multiple-time all-state player with a career record of 22-8 with a 1.64 ERA over 186 innings, striking out 278 batters (1.5 Ks per inning) to have anything but an inflated ego. But with his success and the unrealistic expectations it brought, he’s still a kid who was wooed by MLB scouts and Division I players and will one day have a chance to improve on his MLB draft status. He understands expectations and came out the other side with his pride and his dignity.

He’s exactly where he needs to be.