Tiger Cubs (notes on the minors)

[Arlington]

On 8/24/2025 at 9:38 PM, Cruzer1 said:

Teams usually like ther prospects to have at least 1,500 plate appearances before moving up to the majors.  McGonigle has about 750 right now. A full year in AAA will probably put him around 1,200.

You really should look at the most similar comparable.  How many minor PAs did Rogers Hornsby have?

[gehringer_2]

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. 

Edited September 5 by gehringer_2

[SeattleMike]

1 hour 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. 

In fairness his BABIP is 160 points lower in AA than A+. No doubt his contact quality is lower in AA, but a some of this, maybe a good deal of it, is simple bad luck. 

[gehringer_2]

7 minutes ago, SeattleMike said:

In fairness his BABIP is 160 points lower in AA than A+. No doubt his contact quality is lower in AA, but a some of this, maybe a good deal of it, is simple bad luck. 

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

[TigerNation]

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.

[TigerNation]

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.

[tiger2022]

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.

[TigerNation]

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.

[tiger2022]

4 minutes ago, TigerNation said:

McGonigle is absolutely dominating AA lol.

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.

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, 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.

actually, regardless of whether the results output is a matter of bad luck or needing to catch up, either way less dramatic outcome numbers will still lower the attention being paid to the young man, which is probably a good thing.

[Shinzaki]

I have zero issue with Clark getting more time to mature in the minors..and even less of an issue with McGonigle having another year or so to demonstrate he can stick at SS.  

[SoCalTiger]

Play out the season in Erie for both and start there in 2026 also with move to AAA then 2027 Detroit if warranted and no work stoppage 

[tiger2022]

That is my point.  Very few players are mlb ready by 23 or 24.  These guys aren't.  Let them get experience where they should be at...AA and next year maybe AA or AAA again before even thinking about bringing them up.  Baseball is hard.  And shining in high school and the low minors is a lot different than hitting even average major league pitchers.

When they do come up and struggle their first few seasons, many of the same posters who claim they would step in and be better than a guy like Torres will say they suck and were overrated.

For every Mike Trout or Manny Machado...guys that were stars by 20, there are hundreds of Jared Kelenics.

Edited September 5 by tiger2022

[1984Echoes]

On 9/3/2025 at 11:27 AM, papalawrence said:

Pacheco's ops is up to .912. Still only 22. Should finally move up to Erie next season.

That should be the tell for what Pacheco actually could become...

[Cruzer1]

18 hours ago, Arlington said:

You really should look at the most similar comparable.  How many minor PAs did Rogers Hornsby have?

I'm not that old....

[RandyMarsh]

McGonigle is the 6th youngest player in the Eastern league yet he is 2nd(1st is a non prospect 28yr old) in K/BB ratio, also has the 11th best RC+ among players with 100 PAs, the 10 players ahead of him all have BABIP 100 points higher and are all atleast 2 yrs older.  

[Edman85]

Erie is headed to the playoffs. Doesn't look like Toledo is.

ergo. Keep them in Erie this year.

[1776]

White Caps get a call out for their success. Awesome!

https://www.wsj.com/sports/baseball/west-michigan-whitecaps-detroit-tigers-85afe9a0?mod=mhp

[RandyMarsh]

 

[gehringer_2]

Urquidy with a good outing for the Hens tonight - 3IP, 0H, 0R, 3K.

Unfortunately Brant Hurter got lit up for 4 runs on 4 hits in 1 IP and took a blown save and the loss. Doesn't appear close to figuring it out.                                                                 

Edited September 7 by gehringer_2

[davidsb623]

Did you see . . . . this past weekend, the Tigers minor league affiliates went a combined 10-2 and outscored their opponents 108-29.

[HugoD]

On 9/5/2025 at 12:40 AM, TigerNation said:

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

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.

[gehringer_2]

1 minute 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.

Other things being constant, BaBIP will correlate to EV and LD%, but since other things aren't constant and since it's really LD% (or launch angle distribution if you want to be modern) and EV that are the 1st order inputs that tell you something. and since they are now more available, you can look at those things directly. 

[TigerNation]

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.

[TigerNation]

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

 

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.

 

Edited September 8 by TigerNation