The Rockaway Wave
Originally Published May 22, 2026
Tens of millions of kids across the world grow up playing baseball. A small fraction go on to play professionally, and an even smaller fraction of those players get to play where they grew up.
Channing Austin is one of those players.
“It’s pretty crazy,” Austin said. “It feels like I’m going to high school. I drive past my high school every day on the way to get here. I drive past all these fields that I played at.”
A Prospect Lefferts Gardens native, Austin has an apartment with two of his friends in the borough where he grew up. He said he was a Yankees fan as a kid, but went to more Mets games.
“I really like the Citi Field atmosphere,” Austin said. “I just thought it was really special. The food is amazing, the energy of the ballpark, that’s why you go to a baseball game.
Austin went to Poly Prep Country Day School, playing baseball on a field about four miles down the road from Maimonides Park. He’s still involved with the school, Poly Prep general manager Matt Roventini said, and comes by often to work out. While he’s there, he’s a resource to the kids who are where he was just a few years ago.
“It’s always nice to have a kid that has done it, been there, done that, and is willing to give his knowledge to the younger guys,” Roventini said.
With no traffic, the drive from Poly Prep to Coney Island can be done in under 15 minutes down the Belt Parkway. Whenever he pitches in a home game for the Cyclones — especially on the weekends — his family and friends come out to watch. He has so many people who want to come see him pitch that he has to go around the locker room asking his teammates if they have any tickets to spare from the ones every player gets to give out.
“I honestly just feel the strength, people you love that believe in you so much, and you don’t really feel much pressure to prove them right in any way,” He said. “I just feel love from them.”
Austin has been by far Brooklyn’s best pitcher so far in 2026. In eight starts, he’s thrown 38 and ⅓ innings to the tune of a 1.17 ERA and 1.10 WHIP with 48 strikeouts. The walk total is high, but he’s done a good job of keeping the traffic on the basepaths from scoring.
He’s a full-fledged starting pitcher now, a stark change from what he was just a few years ago.
After pitching for two seasons at Poly Prep and losing his senior year due to COVID-19, Austin went to the University of Virginia. He only appeared in two games as a freshman and then transferred to the University of Southern California, where he appeared in 16 games as a Trojan over two seasons, with a Tommy John Surgery sandwiched in between.
In his entire college career, Austin appeared in 18 games, all in relief, throwing just 15 and ⅓ innings. He threw another 43 and ⅓ innings across four different summer ball seasons, but even then, that adds up to just 58 and ⅔ innings over four college seasons.
The Mets, who signed him as a free agent following the 2024 MLB Draft, see him as a starter. In 2025, his first full season, he threw 74 innings.
“We see an athlete,” Cyclones pitching coach Luis Alvarado said. “We see a guy that has a really good repertoire. He has really good control of the off-speed, an extremely good fastball, and we wanted to give someone like him a chance to be able to showcase what he does for a longer period of time.”
Austin throws a fastball that averages 93-94 mph and has hit as high as 97. It has a lot of ride and run, and Alvarado said he recently threw one that clocked in at 95 mph with over 20 inches of IVB and 17 inches of arm-side run.
He rounds out his arsenal with a curveball, slider and changeup, all pitches that have either been developed from scratch or seen their shapes change significantly since arriving to the Mets. His curveball, for example, has changed from a pitch that broke straight down to one that breaks down and to the left with the goal of getting more swing and miss.
“I really only had a fastball when I signed,” Austin said. “[The Mets] helped me develop a four-pitch arsenal. It’s pretty platoon neutral; I can face both sides with all four of my pitches. I worked hard, and they gave me an opportunity.”
Austin said he just tries to throw the ball right down the middle, because he knows the pitch won’t actually go there. The goal is to let the hitters get themselves out. Then, when he gets into a favorable pitcher’s count like 0-2 or 1-2, he’ll attack the hitter with his off-speed offerings.
Alvarado, who was with Austin for most of the season in 2025 in St. Lucie, said he’s seen the young starter come back from this offseason in amazing shape with the necessary adjustments made to be successful.
“He has been more in zone, especially the off-speed,” Alvarado said. “I think he took a huge step from last year, where he was mainly fastball in-zone, to this year being able to execute the curveball, execute the slider in zone, and sprinkle in the changeup to get strikeouts.”
He has impressed his coaches with his work ethic and willingness to learn.
“Even on the outings that maybe he didn’t do well … he was so positive, and every day he came out and was eager to learn,” Alvarado said. “And I think he took everything he did last year, he didn’t forget how it went, took it into the offseason, he worked on everything he needed to work on … and then he brought it into the season.”
That’s something that goes back to his high school days as well, and was something Roventini, who was the head coach at Poly Prep while Austin was there, emphasized.
“He had to work through some command issues, which I think all young kids have to do,” Roventini said. “But he worked really, really, hard and diligently. He’s a really smart, smart kid, and so he always asked a million questions. He always wanted to know why.”
The positive attitude and willingness to be open to anything he can learn from is something Austin echoed.
“I’m not a college guy who is out here and has pitched 300 innings, played third base in high school, didn’t pitch much in my college career,” he said. “Every time I go out there, I’m just getting experience pitching, just stacking games and experience, and experience. There’s a quote that I love, it’s like, ‘When the goal is experience, everything’s a win.’ Every outing that I have, I can take something from. Before every outing I have, I learn something, I enter a new situation that I haven’t been in before.”
Jorge Eckardt Portfolio 