TigerNation

21 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Not at all, just talking players in general.

The basic issue to me is that everything (for a position player) comes down to hitting, and to this day, projecting how guys are going to hit as they face progressively tougher pitching is the hardest thing to do, so it's natural that everything else which is easier to see tends to get a little more attention because there's no good metric for 'can you hit Tarik Skubal's change' until the guy gets a chance to try to do it. 

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.

12 minutes ago, IdahoBert said:

So what you’re parodying in pre-analytic terms is that “he doesn’t look like a ball player.“ I can see that being a problem for some. 

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

3 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

And you don't need to excel in every aspect of the game to be a great player. Would you draft Andrelton Simmons over Derek Jeter? I've never seen anyone play SS like Simmons when he 1st came up, but if I wanted to win ball games I'll take Jeter. Or long story short version: Great hitting trumps almost everything else.

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.

8 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

well, there are plenty of guys in the HOF at less than 6' so his height should be the least of his problems.  

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.

54 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

that he's 'only' 5' 11"?

 

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

1 hour ago, 4hzglory said:

He’s ranked the best overall hitting prospect since Vlad by BA with no weaknesses in any aspect of his hitting, including power.

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. 

1 hour ago, IdahoBert said:

What are his physical limitations?

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.

5 hours ago, Edman85 said:

In the BA Era, the only Tigers position prospects ranked in the Preseason Top 10 are...

• 2007 Cameron Maybin (6)
• 2021 Spencer Torkelson (5)
• 2022 Riley Greene (4)
• 2022 Spencer Torkelson (5)

By all indications, McGonigle will be 2, and the talk is that he and Konnor Griffin are a different brand of a elite than most 1-2 combos.

Every prospect is different. Every prospect reacts differently to failure. Saying that the Tigers shouldn't promote McGonigle because Scott Sizemore flopped shows a lack of understanding of the difference in their pedigrees. And some fan on their couch isn't going to know the ins and outs about whether failure would positively or negatively affect McGonigle more than the Tigers' staff or McGonigle himself. The Prospect Promotion Incentive Draft Pick rules give a big incentive to the Tigers to put him on the opening day roster if he is ready.

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.

7 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

Someone finds out after a GM gets fired and is bitter. An agent like Boras, for example, makes millions of dollars a year. That could all be in jeopardy for very little gain. Think about it, everyone already knows the ballpark figure it will take to sign Skubal. If he were to shop him while he's still under contract, he may make a few extra million. But he would be exposing himself to being suspended from being an agent in future damesls;

 

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/

4 minutes ago, Tenacious D said:

I have to believe Colt is headed for 3B, barring a Bregman signing.  All of our prospects are 2B—Lee, McGonigle and Anderson.

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.

4 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

Looking at the stats at the time of the trades? The Tigers only went after the cheapest and least desirable players they could find. Paddack? Really? A reject from a total bottom feeder of a team? I bet you were overjoyed that Harris hung onto 15 2nd base prospects. It gives you something to keep track of all summer...🤣🤣

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.

1 minute ago, Screwball said:

I have been absent for quite a few years so I have no clue what pitch com is or does. I'm very old school so I am used to fingers. 🙂

For the record, I don't like the way many catchers setup today, or how they frame pitches. The game has changed so much I feel like an alien.

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

1 hour ago, Screwball said:

To the bold: that is a possibility.

I don't know what they use today, but the pitcher and catcher should be on the same page with every hitter. They should know how they want to pitch them. What pitch, what location, etc., even before a pitch is ever thrown. It should then be easy to come up with a set(s) of signs they can switch to when necessary. The entire holding down 1, 2, 3 fingers could mean nothing, but where he puts his glove while giving the signs could be an indicator. Or adjusting his mask could be another. There are all kinds of ways to do this.

IOW, there should be no way for opposing teams to steal signs if you do things the right way. I don't know how much this happens, and they likely aren't going to tell us either.

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

Some 100 PA rolling numbers for McGonigle in AA.

On 9/11/2025 at 1:27 PM, SeattleMike said:

According to a recent Keith Law article about the Arizona Fall League McGonigle's BABIP since August 1 is .125. And yet he still has a wRC+ of 155. 

"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.

2 hours ago, HugoD said:

Genuinely curious - are you inferring that BABIP has limited use as a metric?   I do think it's really limited and overused - but I can't tell if you're  for it or against it.

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

On 9/5/2025 at 1:04 PM, tiger2022 said:

I would never say a player with a .246 BA is dominating anything.  But at least you got to feel dismissive towards someone else by typing lol in your response.

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.

4 hours ago, tiger2022 said:

These guys aren't exactly dominating in AA, yet they are supposed to come up and be better than All Star performers?

These guys aren't ready for mlb.  Give them a chance to develop in AA for God's sake.

McGonigle is absolutely dominating AA lol.

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

And/Or the 150 PA at A ball may have included some good luck.

If your analysis involves BABIP, or stats influenced by BABIP, your analysis is worthless.

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

For the season McGonigle has as many PA at AA as at A by now, and his BA/OPS is down 130/220 pts on the transition to AA. He's finding some challenges to overcome that he wasn't at A ball. Hype train can maybe take a bit of a breather. 

BB%, K%, and ISO are the only relevant stats to look at, at least that are publicly available. Statcast data would be relevant of course as well, and the most recent update we've gotten from that was elite.

Hype train has only gone up with his performance in AA, he's very clearly not being challenged.

3 hours ago, SeattleMike said:

His BABIP is 100 points lower in AA than it was in A+. 

Ok.

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

LOL - but I think he was also 0 for the previous three games. The walk rate is great, and he is hitting the ball over the fence, though his contact rate is down since promotion, but the sample size is too small to mean anything.

What are his contact rates before and after promotion? His K rate is essentially the same.

McGonigle 2-4 with a BB and HR tonight.

13 hours ago, Cruzer1 said:

They won't call him up in the middle of the year, and give up the chance for a first round pick.

He'll either be up within two weeks of opening day or the Tigers will miss out on the chance for a pick.

They won't keep him down an extra three months just because of the pick incentive. 

The Red Sox literally just had the same scenario the Tigers will be facing and they called Anthony up June 9th.

If McGonigle has a 140-150+ wRC+ and maintains a double digit walk rate and low teens K rate through May, there is a 0% chance he won't be called up sometime in June.