The Marlins and the left-handed reliever John King agreed to a one-year, $1.5MM contract through the 2026 season, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. He was not tendered in November. Miami now needs to open two 40-man roster spots – one for King and one for righty Chris Paddackwho agreed to a one-year deal earlier in the week. Their 40-man roster is full, but one spot could be opened by transferring an injured right-hander Ronny Henriquezwho will miss the season following Tommy John surgery, on the 60-day injured list.
King, 31, spent three and a half seasons with the Rangers from 2020-23 before being traded to the St. Louis by the ’23 deadline. He spent the next two and a half seasons in the bullpen for the Cardinals. The 6’2″ softball specialist has a 3.70 ERA in his 243 major league innings but is coming off a rough season in which he worked to a 4.66 earned run average with a low 12.6% strikeout rate in 48 1/3 innings.
While King hasn’t missed many at-bats, that 12.6% mark was still three percentage points south of his career mark entering the 2025 season. Last year’s walk rate of 6.3% was a strong mark but still up from last season’s 5.6%. King’s 93 mph average sinker velocity was also the lowest since the 2022 season.
What King lacks in hitting, he at least makes up for on ground balls. Opposing hitters have a very difficult time pitching against the lefty’s arsenal. He has sported a tremendous ground ball rate of 61.5% in his career and has increased that number to 66.9% (in 2023). As one might expect for an extremely low-ball hitter, King has done a good job of keeping the ball in the yard, with 0.89 homers per nine frames in his major league career.
King has been more successful against lefties than righties, holding same-handed opponents to a .251/.291/.337 slash in his career. Righties hit him well, slashing .302/.353/.430 in 682 plate appearances.
The Marlins have been searching for a lefty to join manager Clayton McCullough’s bullpen. Miami already has Andrew Nardi, Late Gibson again Josh Simpsonbut each comes with some level of red flag. Nardi missed the 2025 season due to injury. Gibson pitched to a 2.63 ERA in 51 2/3 innings as a rookie last year but did so with sub-par strikeout and walk rates; metrics like SIERA (4.08) and FIP (3.76) weren’t nearly as bullish. Simpson posted respectable minor league numbers but rocked a 7.34 ERA in 30 2/3 big league frames.
King, like one of the other three remaining on Miami’s 40-man roster, has question marks of his own. He has a bigger league track record than any of his new southpaw teammates, though — enough to give the Marlins some experience but not so much that he’s a one-year hire. King enters the 2026 season with 4.148 years of major league service time, which means he is still subject to arbitration through the 2027 season. He’ll need to pitch well enough this year for his team to see it worth a raise and keep him an extra year, but if he can return to form in 2021-24, he likely will.
