u/Odd_Foundation_6878

Ullola being optioned is likely the corresponding move.

(This is by no means meant to be critical, I would love king to return to playing how he has been)

I’ve been looking into King’s recent struggles heavily after his outing today to find out why he has been struggling. Through the research I did, I found that King no longer has the reverse splits he had for a majority of the season. The reason for his late struggles against righties appears to stem from his dependency on two pitches, making it difficult to finish plate appearances. The reason for king’s lack of third pitch usage is the fact that both his sinker and changeup aren’t very competitive pitches, which will be further addressed. Due to this, righties going against king don’t have to worry about the outside half of the plate and can camp on those two pitches. All batters can also easily identify the pitch because of the distinct velocity difference of the two pitches.

Before presenting my solution, I want to acknowledge I know how difficult it would be for a reliever to develop/renovate a pitch during the season. That being said, I believe that King should prioritize the following:

1. Getting his sinker to break more to his arm side, as of now it only breaks about four more inches than his fast ball to his arm side.
2. Developing his changeup to have a greater change in velocity compared to his fastball and work on getting it to break to the arm side more. His changeup right now is only breaking 4 more inches than the fastba

ll to his arm side and

1. is only 6 mph slower than his fastball.

Hopefully someone in a position to do something about it is able to see this!