TigerNation

Andy Pages did actually swing at one of them: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1osteuq/highlight_andy_pages_swings_through_an_attempted/

I would be willing to trade Skubal for a kings ransom. Unfortunately, that is not an option. Look at the Burnes trade for the Brewers, the best player they got was Joey Ortiz, who was the 45h ranked prospect on fangraphs, and he is projected as a 2 WAR player entering his age 27 season. He's a solid player, but he is not an impact player, and not a player that meaningfully changes the outlook of your franchise over a 3-5 year period. If you have a good scouting and development organization, and don't have an incredibly cheap and deadbeat ownership, you will have no problem consistently acquiring/developing solid 2 WAR guys, missing out on a guy like that will never be what holds your team back. I checked the fangraphs top 20 prospects from 2014-2019. In that period 87 different players appeared on the lists. Of those, only 20 players had 3 or more 3+ WAR seasons during the 6 years of control. So less than 25% of top 20 prospects actually turned into consistent impact players. And the fact is you would be lucky to get a single top 20 prospect for Skubal, in all likelihood the best you'd get is two top 100 prospects, one of them probably around 50th and the second more of a back half guy. And guess what? Both of those guys are unlikely to turn out to be even average big league starters. The reality is that the Tigers would not receive a package for Skubal that will have any meaningful impact on the teams outlook for the next 6 seasons. If the Tigers trade Skubal and get one player who gives them 12 WAR over their 6 years of control, that would be an objectively successful return. Sorry, but that level of player is not hard to come by, and that is not an exciting return. I'd rather give it one more shot with Skubal, the franchises outlook over the next 6 years after this one will not change whether they trade Skubal or not.

Keith had an .881 OPS in May 2024 and an .838 OPS in May 2025.

It's free in reader mode.

Skubal is going to whichever team offers him the biggest contract.

The Dodgers wouldn't trade Sasaki for Skubal straight up.

There's a wide range of outcomes, but you can be very confident in the floor of performance for some things. Like there is no risk of McGonigle coming up and just having terrible plate discipline and regularly chasing sliders 8 inches off the plate. It's simply not a risk at all, he's not gonna K 22% of the time. You can pretty much be 100% confident than McGonigle will be greater than 70th percentile in contact rate and chase rate. Same goes for Max Clark.

McGonigle is absolutely an old school throw back try hard middle infielder.

No ****? Not relevant to anything I've said. Prospect rankings are biased towards physical upside and raw tools. In order for somebody to be as highly regarded as McGonigle is while being 5'9 and not an explosive athlete, you have to be so insanely good at everything else. It seems you think I said, or implied, he has anything other than a ridiculously high ceiling. I did not, he has an MVP level ceiling.

His height and athleticism are only problems in the context of his absolute ceiling, and that's in comparison to the players who reach 9-10+ WAR seasons. He has first ballot HOF potential.

Pretty much. If McGonigle projected as a plus defender at SS nobody would rank Griffin ahead of him. He's also not 5'11.

Yeah, hence why he's as safe of a prospect as there is. My point is not that he has a low ceiling. Griffin is not ranked higher by anybody because of current performance, it's because he has more upside due to his physical tools.

He's short and not an explosive athlete. Not to say he doesn't have a high ceiling, he absolutely does. But the reason Griffin is ranked higher by some people is because of his physical tools providing a higher ceiling. McGonigle is not going to add a bunch of a value with his base running and fielding, and with his size he's not going to hit 35+ HRs. It's all just to say, for somebody who projects at 2B, and not much physical projection growth, for him to be as highly regarded of a prospect as he is, the bar is so much higher. The fact he so easily clears it removes any concern about him being anything besides a + player in the majors. It would be an absolute shocker if he's not a 3+ WAR player at least, he just doesn't have the absolute upside of somebody like a Witt jr.

And another thing with McGonigle, he has physical limitations that limit his ceiling. For him to still be a consensus top 2 prospect, so much of that is because he is as safe of a bet as a prospect can be, he just has such a high floor.

You realize all Boras has to do is ask a question about the what contract terms a team might offer to a hypothetical player with similar stats to Skubal and it's not tampering, right?

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kevin-mcgonigle-talks-hitting/

McGonigle has been playing some 3b in the Fall League. So he may get a shot there too, as they try to find as many fits as they can for all the 2B prospects.

What stats at the time of the trade are you looking at? You're not valuing them based on the production they had for another team.

Pitch com replaced signals, catchers no longer signal the pitch to the pitcher.

Or they could just use the pitch com, which eliminates sign stealing.

Some 100 PA rolling numbers for McGonigle in AA.

"He hit .214/.358/.541 from Aug. 1 onward, but with just a 10.6 percent strikeout rate and a bizarre .154 BABIP, while obviously still hitting the ball hard (nine homers in 27 games)." An .899 OPS despite a .154 BABIP is just an insane level of dominance.

Here is the stat stability chart from fangraphs: https://library.fangraphs.com/principles/sample-size/ “Stabilization” Points for Offense Statistics: 60 PA: Strikeout rate 120 PA: Walk rate 240 PA: HBP rate 290 PA: Single rate 1610 PA: XBH rate 170 PA: HR rate 910 AB: AVG 460 PA: OBP 320 AB: SLG 160 AB: ISO 80 BIP: GB rate 80 BIP: FB rate 600 BIP: LD rate 50 FBs: HR per FB 820 BIP: BABIP As it stands right now, McGonigle has 185 PAs, 151 ABs, and 119 BIP in AA. So his BB%, K%, HR rate are all useful, and ISO is 9 AB away. We basically need to have 6X more ABs before BA has any meaning and 6.9X more BIP before BABIP would have any use. There is also the stats that correlate most to MLB performance: https://medium.com/the-sports-scientist/minor-league-stat-stickiness-hitters-cbb694a11282 Hint, it's K% and BB%, followed by home run rate. It's really simple, given the small sample sizes here, there are only a few stats that have any value in looking at, and those are all the stats that McGonigle is absolutely elite in. Comparing McGonigle in A vs AA: BB%: 13.5 vs 16.8% K%: 11.2% vs 11.9% ISO: .277 vs .278 HR rate: 1 per 20.71 ABs vs 1 per 15.1 ABs McGonigle's performance in AA is superior to his performance in A ball when looking at the stats that have actually reached stability and have some use, and those stats are also the stats that are most relevant to look at when projecting forward. BA and BABIP will never have a sample size large enough in the minors because it takes almost 2 whole seasons worth of data to have any use whatsoever. McGonigle is not being challenged in AA, and he won't be challenged in AAA either. The jump from AA to AAA is not that big for somebody who is so far ahead of the AA level that he's posting numbers like this. There is no question that McGonigle is too good for minor league pitching, the only question is how he will handle to the jump to the majors. There's only one way to find that out, and we will find that out shortly, not a year from now.

Saying somebody with a 16.8% BB%, 11.9% K%, 155 wRC+ and 40 HR pace is not dominating because of BA is a laughable statement. Having a 155 wRC+ despite having a .221 BABIP requires an insane level of dominance.

McGonigle is absolutely dominating AA lol.