A KC preps pitcher — and MLB prospect — just completed an incredible senior year
The radar guns pointed toward the mound at a sun-soaked Mill Valley High School late last week, half a dozen scouts bordering the backstop to prophesy the future.
I’m here for the present.
There are several Kansas City preps pitchers who have drawn the eye of major-league or college teams this season, including two who will combine for a remarkable high school playoff game on this night, but it’s one extraordinary season that has drawn my curiosity.
Like, almost too extraordinary.
Tall-framed Shawnee Mission East senior Michael Winter has spanned the entire year without truly allowing an earned run — albeit with an asterisk, because the official school record book will show one. The book will be ambiguous.
It’s the kind of thing you hear and promptly question the legitimacy, as though someone has perhaps been duped by an Internet meme.
The proof comes in the box scores, in the full-game videos still available to watch online. I’ve gone back through them, because, well, it might be the only way to believe it.
But how has he done it? That comes anecdotally, in this very game even, which Mill Valley won in extra innings — and will therefore play in the Kansas Class 6A state tournament, opening Thursday against Blue Valley. Mill Valley was the first team to get a second crack at Winter, the Shawnee Mission East senior, and in the third inning of a regional championship, that’s precisely what they earned: a chance. They placed runners on the corners, first and third, with nobody out.
Nearly 60 innings into his senior season, Winter stood on the mound on the verge of finally allowing (debatably) his first earned run.
How did he react? He walked the bases loaded.
On purpose.
It would have to be on purpose, because that’s essentially the only way Winter offers a free pass. Entering the game, he had walked just three hitters and struck out 91.
Bases loaded against Mill Valley — self-inflicted bases loaded, mind you — strikeout 93 arrived.
Ninety-four.
Ninety-five.
Three hitters — Nos. 3, 4 and 5 in the Mill Valley lineup — couldn’t put the ball in play, and seeing the pitches in person made it impossible to blame them. The last two batters might as well have ducked out the way on strike three, nervous that Winter’s 90-something mph fastball was headed straight for their shoulders, only to be greeted with the break of a slider good enough to get out professional hitters.
It froze them.
Him too, apparently.
“I kind of blacked out,” Winter said. “In all my other starts, I can recall batters. I don’t remember a whole lot about that (inning). It’s just adrenaline.”
A pause followed that reply, but then came the most subtle confidence you’ll see from a teenager whose game is much louder on the mound than the personality.
“But I knew I could get three guys out.”
Why wouldn’t he?
Winter’s senior season is done after 62 2/3 innings. He struck out 99 and walked four, that last one intentionally. Read that ratio again. Those are real numbers. He threw two no-hitters and four more one-hitters over a stretch of seven starts, and keep in mind that SM East used him against their best competition.
Whether he allowed zero, one or two earned runs, it is among the most incredible high school seasons you’ll find.
And here’s the thing: The in-person hype lives up to the numbers.
“I’ve been around baseball for 30 years,” his high school coach, Rich Devine said, and for this ensuing perspective, I’ll note that Devine once played on a junior college team with nine players who would either get drafted or later sign with MLB teams.
“I’ve never seen nothing like that season. Not one bad outing. Not one.”
An Ivy League scholarship at Dartmouth awaits, though a team employing one of those radar-gun holding scouts could give him a decision to make at the MLB Draft in two months.
The former — the college commitment — came a year ago.
The latter came far more recently.
As a junior a year ago, Winter was throwing in the upper 80s. Not bad for a high school kid, right? The pinpoint control has always been part of the arsenal, and, really, it was about the extent of it for awhile.
Last winter, though, he wanted something more. He visited Adapt, a local player development clinic, with the intent of putting more life on his fastball.
His fastball sat in the low 90s during his senior year, touching 95 on a couple of occasions. It’s part of a four-pitch mix, and the key is that they all look the same out of the hand.
“He can put any pitch wherever he wants, whenever he wants,” said Mill Valley senior Owen Gietzen. “You just have to sit one pitch, one spot, and hope you get it.”
Winter knew the increased velocity would quite obviously improve his fastball. He noticed something else as the season progressed.
“It makes all my other pitches a lot better, I will say, just being able to mix speeds with a bigger difference,” he said. “My stuff has never been this good, but I’ve always been able to throw strikes, so adding the velo and keeping that ability has helped me thrive.”
Helped him be, well, almost perfect.
Maybe.
So let’s talk about that asterisk.
Winter allowed his first run in an eventual 2-1 win against Olathe East last month. The run scored when an outfielder dropped a fly ball. It’s debatable whether the runner on third could have scored on the next batter, a groundout, but the run went into the book unearned.
He allowed another run two weeks ago, and it’s the lone tally credited as an actual earned run in his senior season. It shouldn’t be, because the video shows it quite clearly: An umpire missed the fact that the baseball was tipped foul before connecting with the catcher’s shin guards, which permitted a runner to advance two bases and subsequently score on an ensuing double play.
(The official scorer had a difficult job, considering the ball was tipped, but it ought to have been a passed ball not a wild pitch, which would have made the run unearned).
But that brings us to Mill Valley.
See, I’d made the trip to Mill Valley for the purpose of witnessing a historic, nearly-too-good-to-be-true season for myself. But I can’t escape this column without telling you about a game you probably knew next to nothing about, because it took on an extravagant life of its own.
After that bases-loaded jam, Winter was cruising. It was still only barely enough, because Mill Valley put on the mound junior Beau Peterson, a Texas commit who just might be a top-round talent next year as a position player. His fastball hits the mid-90s. Rockets from the mound, bombs from the batter’s box. His own decision awaits next year.
Anyway, if there was a better high school pitching matchup in the country last week, it would have been a privilege to see it.
SM East took a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the seventh but had to remove Winter with one out and and a runner on first base because he’d reached the state-rule maximum 105 pitches. A jam-packed, standing-room only crowd knew the consequence. It’s the first time that’s happened to Winter, a credit to Mill Valley’s approach.
Wouldn’t you know it, that runner would eventually score on a passed ball to send the game to extra innings — an unearned run, but a crucial one.
Unfazed, East bounced back to grab another two-run lead in the eighth, but Mill Valley sophomore Easton Engelhart skied an opposite-field two-run home run to tie it once more.
On it marched. Mill Valley loaded the bases in the ninth, two outs, and Gietzen sent an 0-2 pitch down the line to score the game-winner.
The game showcased the best Kansas City has to offer, and it’s hard to imagine it’s ever looked much better. As a scout told me during extra innings, you wouldn’t believe the number of high school kids in Kansas City who are throwing 90-plus.
There are theories as to the causes — better training, more prestigious summer tournaments in KC are just a mirage.
But there is a consensus to the effect: A mild spring has produced a hot year for Kansas City pitching.
“Kids from the Midwest don’t really get the year-round reps, but when they do, they take advantage of it,” Peterson said. “There’s a lot of competitiveness here in Kansas City.”
Peterson, the Texas commit from Mill Valley, will pitch another game this week at the state tournament. The Missouri-side state quarterfinals are scheduled for this week, too.
Winter’s spring is done.
There won’t be another like it soon.