NOBLE — More than 20 men wearing baseball caps and sunglasses, holding notebooks, walked up to the Noble High School baseball stadium on a mild day in early May.
Leaning against a bus near the bullpen in foul territory, most of the Major League Baseball scouts in attendance watched intently as the slender, 6-foot-4 left-handed ace from Elk City High School warmed up. Minor leaguers and high schoolers who had played the game before also watched in awe, and many called others to tell them what they had seen.
It was the Class 4A state tournament, and the Kash Mayfield Show had descended on the town of more than 6,000 near Norman. Mayfield, one of the top high school prospects in Sunday’s MLB draft, impressed. He struck out 18 batters and had the radar on all night.
“This guy is a top-notch pitcher,” said Chickasha assistant coach Travis Owen. “He’s a great player.”
OU baseball coach Skip Johnson even rode in his truck to watch the Oklahoma State recruit, simply because he’s a fan of good baseball. The Elk City broadcasters raved about the magical season they witnessed from the front row, including Mayfield striking out 18 in a seven-inning perfect game.
Mayfield is expected to hear his name called with the 23rd overall pick by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday night, according to USA Today’s mock draft released Friday.
Mayfield was a late bloomer among first-round prospects. He exploded onto the scene last season, pitching a 0.16 ERA and 115 strikeouts in 44 innings. Mayfield allowed four hits, one earned run and eight walks, while opposing hitters hit .030 against him.
Mayfield was named to The Oklahoman’s All-State first team last season and has been the Gatorade Oklahoma State Player of the Year the past two seasons.
Mayfield’s work ethic and humility have gotten him this far, two qualities he will bring to any organization that takes a chance on him.
He participated in the MLB Draft Combine in Phoenix where he interacted with 20 clubs, with the Dodgers, Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres being the teams he had the most contact with. The Padres hold the 25th overall pick in the first round, while the Diamondbacks pick 29th.
“It’s going to be huge,” Mayfield said. “It’s something I’ve worked toward since I was a little kid. It’s been a goal and a dream since I started playing baseball. It’s going to be a huge accomplishment, but the work isn’t done, so after that, I’ve got a job to do.”
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“This guy is a guy”
When he’s not driving the 100 miles from Elk City to Oklahoma City to hone his throwing repertoire with coach Alex Marney or traveling the country to camps, Mayfield is trying to clear his mind.
He recently started playing golf with his old teammates. Although hunting and fishing are not activities he particularly enjoys, he finds peace in the quiet when his cousins encourage him to take them up.
Mayfield began playing regional soccer with Oklahoma Elite at age 11 before joining USA Prime based in Plano, Texas. Kash’s parents, Jenni and Monty Mayfield, remember the moment it all went from traveling to games across Oklahoma and Texas to realizing this could be something their son could do for a career.
At age 14, Mayfield flew to Hoover, Alabama, for a fun week at the WWBA National Championships.
“I thought I was just going out there to help pitch,” he said.
The family returned home with Mayfield’s name on the tournament’s MVP trophy and a host of college interests.
Two weeks later, Team Elite called Mayfield to invite him to play at the USA Complex in Charlotte, North Carolina. From that point on, the floodgates were open.
“It was an eye-opener. That’s when he started to get attention,” Monty said. “It was the first time we’d ever been faced with anything like that.”
It’s been a hectic few months for Mayfield. How he’s approached them mentally has been key.
“At first it was very stressful and there was a lot of pressure on me,” Mayfield said of the attention he received. “Because at the time it was new for a lot of guys to come to me like that.”
Young athletes, especially adolescents who are interested in college or professional careers at an early age, face undue stress and pressure to succeed. According to a January report from the American Academy of Pediatrics, about 70 percent of children drop out of organized sports by age 13, and the “professionalization of youth sports” is a factor.
“I’ll be honest, it was quite nerve-wracking, especially at the beginning,” Monty said.
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Jenni added: “We’re used to it now. We’ve had the opportunity to visit several of them at our house or on the phone and they’re just men. So getting to know them and seeing what goes on behind the scenes makes us feel a little more comfortable.”
Despite the traveling circus that follows his every move, Mayfield’s love for the game has only grown with the attention.
When Mayfield started working with Marney at Pitching Wrx, his hard work caught the attention of everyone on the team.
But Mayfield rarely spoke. Sometimes Marney would coach Mayfield through an entire session without speaking to him.
But the silence is deceptive. Marney said Mayfield was one of the best leaders he’s ever known, calling him a “silent assassin.”
The professionalism he has shown throughout his rise to popularity has been admirable to those who know him best and it has translated into his playing.
“As I settled in last season and let my confidence and competitive spirit take over,” Mayfield said, “all those worries went away and I just sat there and did my thing. (All of a sudden) it was cool to have them there watching me and talking to them.”
Unlike veteran college players who enter the draft with several years of experience and are accustomed to hard work and scrutiny, Mayfield was forced to grow up before he graduated high school.
The maturity he’s shown throughout the process — including the risky decision to take last summer off to rest — has turned the game he loves into a potential career.
“He did really well, honestly, especially considering how quickly it happened for him,” said Marney, who has coached several current professional baseball players. “Because he was on scouts’ radars and all that, but it didn’t really happen until February 1st, where we were like, ‘Oh (bad word), this guy’s a guy. We’ve got to go out there and see him.’”
“He went from not playing basketball in the summer to not doing much in the fall, to all of a sudden having 25 to 30 scouts at his games. I don’t think anyone could have handled that better than he did.”
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“I’m going to do some really cool things.”
Entering his final season in Elk City, Mayfield approached Marney with two specific goals in mind.
First, he wanted to work throughout the fall to get his fastball velocity up to 95 mph, which he did, and he wanted to become a first-round pick. Marney’s main goal during the process was to strengthen Mayfield’s shoulder while managing the workload and giving him plenty of time to recover.
“We played around with some little mechanical things that worked really well for him,” Marney said. “The shoulder strengthening, a little bit of weight gain, some minor mechanical adjustments and it all worked for him.
“It’s become quite special.”
Marney remembers thinking how unique Mayfield’s motion was when he first saw him pitch. Mayfield fools hitters with his unique arm angle, spin step, leg lift and landing on the mound.
Anyone who watches Mayfield throw describes him as an oddity. He almost looks like he has a limp.
“Are Kash’s legs okay?” a crosschecking scout sent to Marney after one of his outings. “I noticed he was limping a little bit after running the bases.”
“No, it’s just his pimp limp,” Marney replied, referring to the name Monty coined for Kash’s signature gait.
Aside from mechanical adjustments to increase fastball velocity, Marney says the most significant difference he’s seen in Mayfield is his confidence.
It’s something Mayfield credits to Marney. The duo went from hours of practice where they barely spoke to one another to a deep trust.
Marney works with 15-20 affiliated professional players and was instrumental in the development of former Heritage Hall of Famer Jackson Jobe, who was selected third overall by the Detroit Tigers in the 2021 MLB Draft. Seeing Marney’s work with other players translate into college and professional success gave Mayfield confidence in the work they were doing.
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Seeking advice from those professional players when he comes to town on the weekends to train has also become essential to Mayfield’s development.
In the final weeks leading up to the draft, Marney had planned a light schedule for Mayfield. He didn’t throw much and focused on getting his body ready for the next level, whether that was in the pros or on the college team with the Cowboys in Stillwater.
“He’s definitely a small-town kid who’s going to do some really cool things,” Marney said.
Despite a brilliant performance by Mayfield, Elk City lost that game to Noble in early May. A routine ball that would have sent the game to ninth base hit the third baseman’s glove and fell, costing the Elks a spot in the state semifinals. Mayfield, who wasn’t on the mound for the final out, was filled with emotion as he hugged his high school coaches and teammates, disappointed that he couldn’t win a state championship.
For Elk City pitching coach Taylor Varnell, the moment celebrated Mayfield’s high school career and what lies ahead.
“If you look at his career, it’s one of the greatest in Oklahoma history,” said Varnell, who spent time in the Chicago White Sox farm system. “Coming from someone who played a lot of baseball, he’s very unique. His combination of athleticism, his arm and just the head on his shoulders is something you don’t see, especially from a high school player and there’s a lot to be said for that.”
“It was really a pleasure to watch him.”
He’s worked hard, now it’s time to play ball.
“I’m just going to go out there and do what I do,” Mayfield said.
2024 MLB Draft
- When: Sunday-Tuesday
- Or: Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth, Texas
- TV: MLB Network, ESPN (first round, 6 p.m. Sunday)
