Nationals Star Prospect Seaver King Reveals What Elite Tigers Prospect Taught Him

Hopefully this is the start of Washington Nationals star prospect Seaver King turning things around in his career.

Cory Knowlton-Imagn Images

The new era of Washington Nationals baseball has officially arrived.

With Paul Toboni taking over as president of baseball operations, he wasted little time making massive changes to the organization, dismissing multiple longtime front office employees and overhauling other departments like their scouting division.

That signals that a new approach will be coming to the nation's capital this offseason, and it creates tons of questions about how everyone from the major league roster all the way down to lowest levels of the farm system factors into everything.

Seaver King's future is one that a lot of people will be focused on when the new regime is put in place. As the 10th overall pick of the 2024 draft, he has not quite impressed in the way that many expected, slashing just .244/.294/.337 this year with six total home runs, 30 extra-base hits and 43 RBIs across 125 games at the High-A and Double-A levels this year.

Because his hit tool was the most lauded aspect of his game entering the draft, his inability to have success at the plate is a major concern at this stage of his career. However, King showcased his ceiling during the early portion of this year's Arizona Fall League, and it seems like a conversation with the Detroit Tigers' elite prospect Kevin McGonigle is to thank for that.

Seaver King Reveals Advice Given to Him by Kevin McGonigle

Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The trajectory of these two have been completely different, with McGonigle going from being the 37th overall pick in the 2023 draft to becoming one of the premier prospects in the sport. Because of that, it's smart for King to pick the brain of McGonigle, and it resulted in a head-turning performance.

"I was trying to figure out the swing and everything else," King said, per Jesse Borek of MLB.com when discussing his 2025 season, "But at the end of the day, like Kevin McGonigle told me: 'It's never the swing. It's always pitches and timing and all those things.' So he kind of simplified it for me today and you know, it worked."

That day, King delivered a three-hit, five-RBI performance for the Scottsdale Scorpions of the Arizona Fall League. Included in that was a three-run homer to the opposite field. All three of his hits had exit velocities of more than 102 mph, which is a great sign for the youngster.

Hopefully King can build upon that performance. Across three games at the time of writing, he has gone 5-for-13 with that lone home run, a double, six RBIs, a stolen base and two strikeouts to one walk.