When Alex Anthopoulos said that acquiring starting pitching depth is going to be a priority this offseason, Atlanta Braves fans have been abuzz with speculation as to what rotation help the front office could bring him. There has certainly been some rehashing of familiar targets as well as hoping that the Braves could swing big on the free agent market. However, one option that hasn't been talked about much is free agent starter Michael King.
On the surface, King seems right up Atlanta's alley. He has been a very productive starter for the Padres the last couple of years and that he isn't considered one of the top starters on the free agent market has to be appealing to Alex Anthopoulos and his long-held desire to look for value.
However, one issue with King exists that could (and maybe should) keep Atlanta from pursuing him despite the current chatter about it and that has to do with his recent injury history.
Michael King's injury history should give the Braves a lot of pause before any free agent pursuit
This is not the first time that King has been loosely connected to the Braves and it is certainly true that Atlanta and San Diego have had at least some trade talks in the recent past that may or may not have involved King (with Dylan Cease being the other possibility). Obviously no deal got done and now that King is a free agent, there is some reason to believe that his medicals could contain some less than ideal news.
King had two injuries in 2025 with one being a knee injury that, at least based on publicly available information, is not likely to be a long-term problem even though it cost him valuable innings down the stretch. However, the other injury cost him over two and a half months in the middle of the season was a pinched thoracic nerve which impacted his throwing shoulder and arm.
Pinched nerves do happen and sometimes they just need some rest and non-invasive treatment to calm down. However, that sort of nerve issue could (completely non-professional medical opinion here) be a precursor to thoracic outlet syndrome if there were other undetected issues in his shoulder which would be bad news.
The Athletic's Jim Bowden thinks that King could command a deal similar to one that Nate Eovaldi got from the Rangers with his guess being three years, $75 million. If King is going to get $25 million a year, the Braves are going to have to be really, really, really confident after looking at his medicals that everything is going to be just fine with his throwing arm the next couple of years at least.