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
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.
Keep in mind that Pike’s performance was measured at an MLB event using the same tech and standards used to populate this leaderboard:
While the spin rate is impressive, so is the bat. Pike demonstrated a top-15 exit velocity among all college and prep players tested at the combine, showing off standout potential as an every-day player.
And the potential has major league talent evaluators drooling.
“The Kid Shoves, Remains to be Seen if the Nationals Can Afford Him”
Baseball America describes Pike as follows: “An athletic two-way player who could be a shortstop at the next level but might have more upside on the mound. He has a high-spin pitch mix with a fastball in the 90-95 mph range that touches 97, as well as a two-plane slider and a mid-80s changeup. He dominated Washington hitters with improved control.”
So why is it again that someone this talented was selected some 560 slots after the Oklahoma guy? Let’s get back to the discussion of signing bonuses for a sec:
Entering the draft Sunday, Pike was ranked #68 by Baseball America and #135 by MLB Pipeline. But Pike wasn’t selected in the first 105 picks of the 2025 draft Sunday, and entering Monday Pike was the fourth-best available prospect left on the board according to Baseball America. This is just to re-establish that Pike is regarded across the board as a top-tier talent. In baseball, talent doesn’t always align with draft status.
In baseball, a team can take a flyer on a first round talent with a strong college commitment in the 19th round and see if they can convince them to skip college and turn pro.
This conversation goes a little easier with a talent like Pike if the team happens to have an extra three mil lying around in their 2025 bonus pool — and the Nationals probably do.
In that case, if you’re the Nats you can offer Pike a first round-level bonus… to see if he’ll forgo college. And if it’s a no-go, the Nats are only out a 19th round pick (which they get returned to them next year) and Pike can head to Corvallis and re-enter the draft again in three years as a draft-eligible 21-year old.
The Athletic’s Jim Callis wrote that it’s still highly unlikely that Pike will forgo Corvallis, but the Nationals raised eyebrows when they skipped past the consensus top five draft prospects and opened the 2025 MLB draft by picking a player ranked between sixth and tenth on most boards. This likely allowed the Nationals to save several million dollars in signing bonus, which — thanks to MLB’s bizarre slotting system — the Nationals are free to use to compensate a 19th round pick — budgeted for zero signing bonus — with the multi million dollar bonus more in line with a late first round pick.
The National’s “under-slot” strategy with their first pick is the only reason they’d even bother drafting someone as talented as Pike, rated Baseball America’s 48th overall draft prospect coming into the year. Draft analysts estimate that the Nationals might’ve saved as much as $4 million by taking Willits instead of a college star like pitcher Kade Anderson, who went third to the Mariners.
And its going to take a large chunk of that four mil if the Nationals want to convince Mason Pike against taking his already-among-the-best-in baseball fastball to Corvallis for the next three years.
And yet at the time of publication, as the MLB Draft progressed past pick #536 in the 16th round, Pike had yet to hear his name called. Pike and 25 other prep players ranked in the top 200. And this isn’t an insult or unusual. Edit: as this article was set to publish, Pike was selected in the 19th round by the Washington Nationals.
Pike remained undrafted so long only because teams viewed the first-round talent’s commitment to Oregon State as strong and they knew they’d have to offer first round money to get Pike to forego a chance to develop at a top tier college program.
And that’s where we stand at present. Either Pike will soon be a multi-millionaire pro baseball player like Xavier Neyens….or the MLB Draft will check in on Pike again in a minimum of three years from now – after which Pike and his world class spin rate could easily emerge as a top ten overall talent.
Previously:
"I Know They Whip the Mariners..." Mount Vernon Star is an MLB First Round Pick and an Instant Astros Legend
MOUNT VERNON, WA — Somewhere in Houston today, an Astros fan is getting the face of a Skagit County high schooler tattooed on their arm. Probably more than one.