In an era of baseball where pitch counts and arm preservation dominates the discourse around starting pitchers, Lexington County Blowfish ace Michael Watson is a bit of a throwback. 

At every level of college and pro baseball, teams are using less of their starting pitchers. For example, last season in major league baseball, five starting pitchers threw for over 200 innings. Ten years ago, 16 pitchers tossed at least 200 innings. Twenty years ago, 20 different pitchers threw for at least 200 innings. The name of the starting pitching game has evolved into more efficient, shorter outings.

Last season at Southwestern Assemblies of God University, Watson displayed a style of pitching that is now seen as an antique. He’s an old school innings eater and his last season at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) level proved his unique durability.

Watson led his team in innings pitched last season by a comically large margin. His 93.2 innings of work was 35 more than the second highest total on the team. His average start went 6.2 innings. He even threw six complete games last season.

To go along with his impressive durability, Watson struck out a whopping 134 batters and posted an earned run average of 2.88. He was recently named NAIA First Team All-American on June 6 and attracted the attention of multiple high level division schools. The college attention ramped up after a red-hot start with the Blowfish (28 strikeouts in only three starts).

Blowfish head coach KC Brown told the Chronicle that he was getting contacted by some high major colleges that were inquiring about Watson, including from successful programs like Rice and Texas Tech.

Watson ultimately chose Sam Houston State, where he will more than likely serve as one of their main weekend starters next season. 

He’s a relentless competitor. He gets so locked in mentally and focuses so hard on giving his team all the innings he physically can that it can sometimes be quite the chore to get him off the mound.

“The biggest thing he has going for him is, he’s probably the most competitive pitcher I’ve ever seen to be honest with you,” Brown said. 

Brown recalled a moment in Watson’s second start this season against the Macon Bacon when he came out of the dugout for a mound visit late in the game when Watson was nearing his Coastal Plain League enforced pitch limit to pretend he was going to take him out, just to mess with him.

“I actually had to play a joke on him,” Brown laughed. “We were playing well in Macon last weekend and he had already talked us into going out for one last inning and he was right on the edge of his pitch count and he’s throwing fine. He gets the first two outs of the inning and I go out there to take a mound visit just as a prank and as soon as I crossed the line to go out there, he starts walking towards right field away from me. I kid you not, the kid just loves being on the mound and literally we have to pry the ball away from him.”

Watson’s ability to go deep into his starts isn’t by coincidence, but by his own design. 

“I kind of have that old school mentality that if I go into a game, I want to finish it,” Watson said. “I think I trained to be able to throw 140 pitches a week, which is extreme and rarely happens but when the opportunity arises, I’m gonna take it and be able to do that  and stay healthy doing it. So, that’s my goal. I want to go in, I want to eat innings and I want to give my guys at least six or seven innings while I’m on the mound.”

Part of Watson’s plan to routinely pitch at least six innings in every outing comes from his post start recovery strategy, something that took him two years to develop when he was at Southwestern Assemblies of God.

“The biggest thing I had to learn through my first two years of college was finally getting into a routine,” Watson said. “It’s all about how I’m gonna recover. So I’ll take like two or three days to recover and actively recover with lifting and running and that kind of stuff. But from there, it’s three days to recover where I’m ramping back up to start again. So, it’s just the balance of high intensity and back down to low and build back up to be able to go.”

According to Brown, one of the big reasons Watson has been able to stay in games long enough to rack up innings is his ability to constantly keep batters guessing with his deep arsenal of pitches.

“The biggest thing with his pitch repertoire is that he’ll hold pitches back,” Brown explains. “He has three legit pitches and is working on the slider as well. He might go through the order one full time and not throw the changeup and then save the changeup for later in the game. So really, it’s a legit mix and he can throw any pitch in any count and so I think that really allows him to go in there and throw six, seven or eight innings with no problem.”

Watson’s development didn’t just come from his days at Southwestern Assemblies of God, but he credits his time playing with the Blowfish as an instrumental part of molding him into a division one pitcher.

“It’s definitely helped because coming over here in the Coastal Plain League and being able to play and pitch against higher level hitters and against guys that are at schools much bigger than SAGU,” Watson said. “I think it’s a really fun environment and it’s just kind of something bigger and more fun than what I’ve been able to experience at my old school. Overall, being around better competition and being around players that are better than I am helps me grow as a player too. So, I think it’s just an opportunity to grow and just be around good baseball.”

The growth that he has made at Southwestern Assemblies of God and with the Blowfish has molded him into a valuable and rare asset for any baseball team at any level. If you need a starting pitcher with a fiery competitive edge, a savviness to understand when to use the weapons in his pitch arsenal and is willing to give you 120 pitches in a game, Watson is your guy.

As his coach and someone who has seen this transformation, Brown says he’d trust him to work his way on to any pitching staff he wanted in the future.

“He’s just that type of guy,” Brown said. “He’ll be successful whether he’s at Sam Houston, LSU or the New York Yankees. He really will be.”