<p>For the past few seasons, the Blue Jays&#8217; farm system has been labelled as &#8220;barren&#8221;. A system that featured depth but severely lacked top-end talent.  Now, some of that is because of players graduating, some of it has to do with trading guys away, but regardless of the narrative you choose to run with, the simple fact is the Blue Jays have done a poor job with their drafting and developing for a while now. All that to say that when news came down that farm director Shane Farrell was leaving to join the Detroit Tigers for the same role, it wasn&#8217;t met with much disappointment.</p>
<p>For a team whose farm system was ranked in the 22-25 range via multiple prospect-evaluating outlets, the Blue Jays needed a success story. Enter the 2024 amateur draft, and the early returns they&#8217;ve gotten. Trey Yesavage is a consensus top 100 prospect, Khal Stephen is a top 100 prospect amongst a couple outlets, but a consensus top 125 guy who should soon enter the fold himself, LHP Johnny King has made a mockery of the FCL in his first 3 career pro starts and has received some very LOUD feedback from talent evaluators.</p>
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<p>King was the Blue Jays third-round pick (95th overall) out of Naples High School. The left-handed prep arm signed for an over-slot bonus of $1,247,500 and entered a Blue Jays system that was in desperate need of some pitching breakout stories.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Blue Jays 3-95: Johnny King, LHP, Naples HS (FL) &#8212; young/model-friendly toolsy projection prep, lively low 90s FB and high-spin hammer CV could project abv/plus w/ usable SL and some feel for CH, needs to harness it all but dreaming on solid rotation upside (Miami commit)</p>
<p>&mdash; Taylor Blake Ward (@TaylorBlakeWard) <a href="https://twitter.com/TaylorBlakeWard/status/1812915628644384811?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 15, 2024</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>King is a model darling. He features an exquisite four-pitch mix, highlighted by a lively 4-seam fastball that produces plenty of glove-side run, a dominant hammer curve, which he uses as his main put-away pitch, and he rounds out his arsenal with a slider and a changeup &#8211; both of which he continues to harness and project to be average or better pitches.</p>
<p>King made his professional debut at the Florida Complex League at the beginning of May with the FCL Blue Jays. He&#8217;s made three starts and accumulated 11 2/3 innings. So far, he owns a 0.00 ERA/2.25 FIP/2.62 xFIP/40.4 K%/6.4 BB%. That&#8217;s exactly the kind of results you&#8217;re hoping an arm of King&#8217;s calibre delivers in the FCL. There are some similarities between King and Ricky Tiedemann in terms of what type of pitchers they were when they were drafted. Tiedemann, like King, was a third-round pick as well, although the biggest difference is that King was drafted out of high school while Tiedemann was a JUCO product. However, Ricky was also labelled as a guy with a lively low 90&#8217;s fastball with glove side run and a dominant breaking ball.</p>
<p>By no means am I saying Johnny King = Ricky Tiedemann, but it&#8217;s fascinating that we&#8217;ve already gotten reports that King has added velocity from the time he was drafted. If King can continue to add velo while maintaining the advanced pitch-ability he possesses, there&#8217;s no telling the heights he could reach.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.espn.co.uk/mlb/story/_/id/45223803/top-50-2025-mlb-prospects-updated-roman-anthony-bubba-chandler-marcelo-mayer">Kiley McDaniel</a> just recently put out his updated top 50 prospect ranking for ESPN and while King didn&#8217;t make the cut, he did receive an honorable mention in Kiley&#8217;s (picks to click): &#8220;I&#8217;d also keep an eye on Blue Jays LHP Johnny King and Cardinals C Rainiel Rodriguez (both on the team lists) as my summer picks to click.&#8221;</p>
<p>It remains to be seen how many more starts King gets in the complex before he&#8217;s inevitably promoted to Dunedin. Once he receives that promotion, we&#8217;ll all be privy to public statcast data, which will finally allow us to gloss over his pitch characteristics and the relevant information to see how his pitches are being utilized and break things down further.</p>
<p>Once that occurs, please hurry and save yourself a seat on the Johnny King Rocketship to prospect stardom; it&#8217;s going to sell out fast.</p>
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For the past few seasons, the Blue Jays' farm system has been labelled as "barren". A system that featured depth but severely lacked top-end talent.  Now, some of that is because of players graduating, some of it has to do with trading guys away, but regardless of the narrative you choose to run with, the simple fact is the Blue Jays have done a poor job with their drafting and developing for a while now. All that to say that when news came down that farm director Shane Farrell was leaving to join the Detroit Tigers for the same role, it wasn't met with much disappointment.

For a team whose farm system was ranked in the 22-25 range via multiple prospect-evaluating outlets, the Blue Jays needed a success story. Enter the 2024 amateur draft, and the early returns they've gotten. Trey Yesavage is a consensus top 100 prospect, Khal Stephen is a top 100 prospect amongst a couple outlets, but a consensus top 125 guy who should soon enter the fold himself, LHP Johnny King has made a mockery of the FCL in his first 3 career pro starts and has received some very LOUD feedback from talent evaluators.
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King was the Blue Jays third-round pick (95th overall) out of Naples High School. The left-handed prep arm signed for an over-slot bonus of $1,247,500 and entered a Blue Jays system that was in desperate need of some pitching breakout stories.

https://twitter.com/TaylorBlakeWard/status/1812915628644384811

King is a model darling. He features an exquisite four-pitch mix, highlighted by a lively 4-seam fastball that produces plenty of glove-side run, a dominant hammer curve, which he uses as his main put-away pitch, and he rounds out his arsenal with a slider and a changeup - both of which he continues to harness and project to be average or better pitches.

King made his professional debut at the Florida Complex League at the beginning of May with the FCL Blue Jays. He's made three starts and accumulated 11 2/3 innings. So far, he owns a 0.00 ERA/2.25 FIP/2.62 xFIP/40.4 K%/6.4 BB%. That's exactly the kind of results you're hoping an arm of King's calibre delivers in the FCL. There are some similarities between King and Ricky Tiedemann in terms of what type of pitchers they were when they were drafted. Tiedemann, like King, was a third-round pick as well, although the biggest difference is that King was drafted out of high school while Tiedemann was a JUCO product. However, Ricky was also labelled as a guy with a lively low 90's fastball with glove side run and a dominant breaking ball.

By no means am I saying Johnny King = Ricky Tiedemann, but it's fascinating that we've already gotten reports that King has added velocity from the time he was drafted. If King can continue to add velo while maintaining the advanced pitch-ability he possesses, there's no telling the heights he could reach.

<a href="https://www.espn.co.uk/mlb/story/_/id/45223803/top-50-2025-mlb-prospects-updated-roman-anthony-bubba-chandler-marcelo-mayer">Kiley McDaniel</a> just recently put out his updated top 50 prospect ranking for ESPN and while King didn't make the cut, he did receive an honorable mention in Kiley's (picks to click): "I'd also keep an eye on Blue Jays LHP Johnny King and Cardinals C Rainiel Rodriguez (both on the team lists) as my summer picks to click."

It remains to be seen how many more starts King gets in the complex before he's inevitably promoted to Dunedin. Once he receives that promotion, we'll all be privy to public statcast data, which will finally allow us to gloss over his pitch characteristics and the relevant information to see how his pitches are being utilized and break things down further.

Once that occurs, please hurry and save yourself a seat on the Johnny King Rocketship to prospect stardom; it's going to sell out fast.

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Blue Jays prospect Johnny King is off to a strong start in the farm system

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