MLB Draft: This Local Prep Star's Fastball Already Tops MLB Leaderboards

Selected in the 19th round, Mason Pike will likely take his all-world talent and jaw-dropping spin rate to Oregon State...Top-50 prospect's commitment to Corvalis likely kept him off draft boards

Mason Pike, 2024 Gatorade State Player of the Year and two-time All-SPSL pitcher and shortstop.

PUYALLUP, WA — First of all, put this 19th-round draft pick nonsense out of your mind for a minute, it’s beside the point. Let it be known, Puyallup pitcher and shortstop MASON PIKE — the Washington State 2024 Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year— is a supreme two-way player and a consensus first round pick-type talent.

The 6’0”, 193-pound right-handed pitcher and shortstop out of Puyallup High School earned 2025 Baseball America All-American status through his play on the diamond, putting himself alongside Xavier Neyens and other early first-rounders like Eli Willits, Billy Carlson and Seth Hernandez.

Let’s be clear, this story is about the great Mason Pike, the eighth player drafted out of Puyallup High school in MLB history, and we’ll get back to Pike in a minute. But now we need to talk about an Oklahoma prep shortstop: Eli Willits. The Washington Nationals drafted Oklahoma high school star infielder Eli Willits with the first pick of the MLB player draft Sunday.

Five hundred and sixty-some picks and a full day later, the Nationals selected the aforementioned Puyallup star Mason Pike with their second-to last selection, in the 19th round of the 20-round draft.

Pike probably isn’t going to be a National, at least not in 2025. He’s probably going to be playing college ball in Corvallis for the next three years.

But let’s dwell on the draft for a sec.

Eli Willits and Mason Pike, two first-round talents, separated by 560 picks. This is an insult to Pike, right?

No. Not necessarily.

Because in the unlikely event that the Nationals are able to convince Pike — widely seen as a first or second round talent — to forgo his strong commitment to Oregon State University, Willits and Pike won’t be separated by much when it comes to the figure that really matters: the amount of their signing bonus.

More on signing bonuses in a second.

Already the Best in Baseball At:

Back to Mason Pike and his otherworldly skillset.

A member of the Team USA development program, Pike’s sterling 2025 season at Puyallup earned him player of the year plaudits from multiple sites after he compiled a 10‑0 record on the mound with an 0.22 ERA and 110 K in 64 IP. Pike also hit .480.

Scouts say Pike is an excellent infielder bound for the middle of the diamond who is blessed with an impact bat that already boasts 110-mph exit velocities.

But the reason the Nationals may end up cutting Pike a multi-million dollar check will be tied to a skill that Pike has already demonstrated a best-in-all-of-baseball skill set: fastball spin rate.

Pike stepped onto the national stage at the 2025 MLB Draft Combine, held for draftable college and high school players, posting the best 4-seam fastball spin rate among all participating high school and college players – while topping 95 mph in velocity.

Pike also posted a top-15 overall exit velocity as a hitter, approaching 110 mph.

But it’s the spin rate that really captivated scouts’ imagination. Let’s take a second to talk spin rate. In short, the more a pitcher imparts spin on the baseball, the more the pitch moves, the harder it is to hit. Spin rate is also seen as force-multiplier in young players, moldable clay from which player development wizards can produce exponentially increasing results.

The spin rate of an average major league pitcher comes in between 2250-2350 RPMs according to Statcast. In general, more spin equals more movement, which makes the pitch harder to hit. To whit: major league batters are hitting .264 on four-seam fastballs in the league average range of 2,250–2,350 rpms.

But MLB hitters lose nearly fifty points of average on spin rates above 2,500 — managing a meek .217 in 2024.

So if 2300 is MLB average and 2500 is MLB-level excellence, just how well was Pike spinning his four-seam fastball at the combine?

Better than anyone in all of baseball, according to MLB’s own technology and data. Per Baseball America, Pike led all combine participants in four seam spin rate, testing out at 2,684 RPMs at an average velocity of 95 mph.

That’s literally a league-leading spin rate.