Right-hander Nick Kingham has signed with SK Wyverns of the Korea Baseball Organization, Rob Biertempfel of The Athletic reports. The deal comes with a $500K salary, a $200K signing bonus and a $200K option, per Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net.
The 28-year-old Kingham is best known for his tenure with the Pirates, who chose him in the fourth round of the 2010 draft. Kingham eventually became a top 100 prospect, but the 6-foot-5 hurler has fallen flat in the majors since debuting in 2018. Across 131 2/3 innings in the bigs divided between Pittsburgh and Toronto, Kingham has managed a less-than-stellar 6.08 ERA/5.58 FIP with 7.86 K/9, 3.49 BB/9 and a 39.5 percent groundball rate.
The soft-tossing Kingham, who has averaged less than 92 mph on his fastball, has been better in Triple-A ball. Kingham has posted a 4.00 ERA with 7.5 K/9 and 2.5 BB/9 over 297 frames at that level. He’ll now try to outdo those figures and rebuild his stock in Korea.
Had that amazing debut, and went 7 no hit innings. Good luck to him. Maybe in 2 years, he’ll return and be the next Miles Mikolas.
Yes….he may need to figure something out for himself.
Such a shame. Used to throw harder and was highly regarded. He was on track to hit the bigs before Taillon but Tommy John had other ideas. Was never the same after the surgery. Hope for his sake that he figures out how to pitch without the big velocity.
Looks like Angel Sánchez is going to another KBO team or the NPB. Same for Henry Sosa.
I was surprised at how quickly his stock fell in the ML.There may be something behind the scenes that is not common knowledge.Usually guys who were once in the top 100 prospects get more chances than this.
Perhaps he decided to take near a million dollars then pitch in aaa with the hope of a call up
I would too at age 28! Time is running out to cash in on his skills.
Product of Ray Searage work. Searage enforced the pitch to contact and it messed this guy up.
Everything and everyone who did not go well was not Ray’s fault.
NK did not suddenly get it right with Toronto.
No ML team wants him.
Maybe it was Nick’s fault.
While I agree that not everything is Rays fault, it’s quite obvious he needed guys to adjust to his philosophy and he couldn’t adjust to what is best for the player.
I have heard that before about Ray’s pitching philosophy and if he had a one size fits all one without flexibility then that is not 9nly on him but on Hurdle and NH also.It seems to me though that he was so successful with Benedict’s assistance in helping many pitchers from outside that he could not have been that inflexible.And yes it was not only Burnett but Happ,Nova,and Volquez also among others.
Cole did not come down on him and Glasnow said that the change that he made in Tampa Bay was the same one that RS wanted him to do but he finally grasped it.
It may have been time for him to go but these pitchers are big boys and need to take the responsibility themselves for pitching up to their physical capabilities.
I don’t think Searage ever lived up to the hype he received after resurrecting AJ Burnett, and he never did develop Cole, Morton and Glasnow, but I’m not sure he could have done much for this guy.