2024 MLB Draft Profile: Seaver King
Draft Profile: Seaver King (Wake Forest)
Height: 6'0
Weight: 200
Bats/Throws: Right/Right
Seaver King, a transformative transfer from the D2 ranks, is poised to be selected in the top half of the first round of the 2024 MLB Draft. King is now one of the key cogs for a Wake Forest team that is looking to win a National Championship.
At the plate, the most impressive trait King has is his bat speed. His swings are consistently compacted, which enables his swings and bat path to create quality contact when it happens. His operation in the lower half displays his athleticism and can help him generate above-average power to the pull side and exit velocities as high as 117 MPH.
Another encouraging development in King’s game is his ability to hit to the opposite field with power this year. A majority of his home runs in 2024 have been to the opposite field. His athleticism, coupled with his great bat speed, can be seen in these clips as he muscles home runs out to the opposite field.
In addition, King’s spray chart is on the healthier side. He can spray the ball all around, which is a testament to the different types of balls in play he can generate. He ranks in the 93rd percentile on hard-hit rate in college baseball, with rates of at least 53% against either side (as high as 62% versus LHP).
King’s athleticism brings so much dynamic potential into his profile. He grades out as a borderline 70 runner, and it shows on the basepaths, and when he is patrolling the outfield for Wake Forest. He also has displayed the versatility to play at other positions at an effective level, which brings a lot of added value to his profile and what his projections can be at the next level. You can see how his athleticism will allow him to grow into a valuable defender in terms of performance or utility (or both).
King’s concerns as a prospect come from other avenues of play. King is an aggressive swinger and is in the bottom 5 percentile for chase rate in all of college baseball. When contact happens, it is good, but he has a tendency to swing frequently, and it lowers his contact and damage output on pitches in the zone (in-zone contact rates are average). I wouldn’t worry a lot about his lack of production against curveballs, mainly because his contact quality has been good against them despite a 40% whiff rate (67% hard-hit rate, 117 Max EV). Arm-side deviations also have caused him trouble in terms of swing and miss, but again, he generally has been able to produce hard contact on them when he puts them in play.
King’s ability to hit fastballs for higher contact quality is evident. While he possesses a 69% hard-hit rate and a 29% sweetspot rate, his swing decisions are not overly impressive. While his damage output against them is evident in a sense, his swing decisions against fastballs grade out as his worst compared to any other frequent pitch, by far. That would be a concern for me, but again, the tools and contact quality are there.
Overall, King has an interesting profile. He will not fit every team’s model because of the amount of swing-and-miss in his game, which is substantial, but the tools are very evident. He can spray the ball throughout the field, possesses above-average power, and is an elite athlete with sufficient arm strength. While his profile is not a perfect one, and I do think his game will need to be harnessed more than some other names around him, he has the makings of an exciting prospect for an organization that will commit to progressing the weaker points in his game. I like what King has to offer, though I understand his aggressiveness has drawn critique and comparisons to players such as Javier Baez. He has time to build his game as a professional and improve his swing decisions, and his positional flexibility will enable him to have a lot of value depending on which organization believes in him to be a future contributor to their franchise.
