Low Three Quarter Media

By Coleman Smith

After struggling with command mightily in 2021 in 31 innings in A ball, John McMillon broke out across 3 levels in the minors and eventually the big leagues in 2023 while posting absurd strikeout numbers. With the Royals bullpen a muddled mess in 2024, could McMillon take hold of the closer role in Kansas City?

This season McMillon pitched in A, A+, and AA, before being promoted to the major league club on August 16. At each one of these stops, he posted a K% above 37%, but also a BB% above 10%. After his promotion, McMillon threw 4 innings with a solo home run being his only blemish while striking out 8 hitters. After saving 10 games in 2023 in the minors, he should figure to get a look at the closer role if the recently acquired Will Smith struggles.

McMillon throws a 4 seam fastball and a slider, with his fastball routinely lighting up the radar for triple digits. Let’s take a look at some of these pitches below.

While the fastball doesn’t have stellar shape, the pitch can routinely create swing and misses due to the velo. By Fangraphs Stuff+, this pitch ranked just behind Felix Bautista’s fastball and right ahead of Emmanuel Clase’s, showing the pitch holds up next to the elite closers in the game. While we don’t have minor league pitch usage data for McMillon since he never reached AAA, in MLB the fastball wasn’t his most used pitch. Although it’s a small sample size, McMillon actually favored his slider (58.2%) over his fastball (38.2%). Out of his 4 outings in Kansas City, he only threw the fastball more often in his first, suggesting maybe he will play off the breaking ball with his fastball instead of vice versa. Let’s get a peek at the slider now.

McMillon throws more of a gyro slider with hard, tight break to tunnel well off the fastball. The pitch has a very similar movement profile to Luis Castillo’s, with just 1 inch of horizontal break and 0.4 inches of induced vertical break. He likely won’t throw this as his #1 pitch with a larger sample size, but the pitch was very effective at creating swings and misses even at the highest level, posting a 75% whiff rate in Kansas City.

Under the hood, McMillon’s minor league numbers are some of the most impressive in professional baseball. Among pitchers who faced at least 100 hitters in the minors last year, he ranks 1st in K%, right above top prospects Ricky Tiedemann and Andrew Abbott, as well as 1st in SwStr%, right ahead of Eury Perez. The stuff absolutely jumps off the page and ranks among the best in the game, the key to McMillon’s success will be commanding it.

Fangraphs currently lists 4 players in the closer committee for the Royals, but the job will likely start with veteran Will Smith. Smith began the season last year as the closer for the eventual World Series winning Rangers, however he would lose the job and not record a save after August 11th. If Smith falters again, KC could look to get the young McMillon chances. And while not projected for a high win total in 2024, the Royals are a young, fun team and McMillon should be available for almost nothing at the back end of all league draft formats. He could turn out to be a very useful stash for players looking for saves in leagues where closers are scarce, or just a useful arm for low ERA and strikeouts.

Video from Baseball Savant

Minor league data from @JonPGH