In just a week of Major League play, Kevin McGonigle has pitchers scratching their heads, wondering just how to get this young phenom out. His minor league numbers offer little hope for an easy answer.
Last year, at just 20 years old, McGonigle posted a striking .305/.408/.583 slash line with a 1.28 BB/K ratio between High-A and AA. He belted 19 home runs in 88 games, projecting to around 35 in a full season.
The only things that slowed him were an early-season ankle injury and a .230 BABIP upon reaching AA, which is notably below the typical major league average of .290. Even with that, he managed a .919 OPS at AA, a testament to his hitting prowess.
Fast forward to now, and pitchers are still struggling to crack the McGonigle code. The strategy?
Classic rookie treatment: let him get himself out. So far, pitchers are throwing him strikes a mere 40.1% of the time, placing him 11th lowest in baseball.
To give you a sense of what that means, Javy Baez saw more strikes last year at 46.4%. McGonigle is being pitched to more cautiously than some of the game’s biggest sluggers.
Let’s put this in perspective with some numbers: McGonigle finds himself among a list of hitters who see even fewer strikes, including the likes of Ronald Acuna Jr. and Corey Seager. These are hitters who command respect at the plate, and McGonigle is already in their company, just a week into his MLB career. Pitchers are clearly wary of giving him anything good to hit, especially fourseam fastballs, where only Luisangel Acuna sees fewer.
The plan is clear: don’t give the rookie anything to hit, banking on him being overwhelmed by MLB-caliber offspeed pitches. But there’s a flaw in this plan-it’s not working.
McGonigle ranks 23rd in BB/K ratio, boasting an impressive 1.20. His chase rate is in the 75th percentile, and his whiff rate in the 92nd.
He’s showing the patience of a veteran, refusing to chase bad pitches and instead taking his walks.
This patience doesn’t mean passivity, though. McGonigle is selective but not at the expense of his hitting.
His slash line of .303/.410/.455 tells the story of a hitter who’s not just taking walks but also making the most of his opportunities to swing. With at least one, possibly two robbed home runs, his slugging could easily be higher.
At this stage of the season, his process is more telling than the results, and the process is undeniably solid.
Look at his barrel rate: McGonigle hits the ball 98+ mph in the air 10.3% of the time, matching the likes of Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Bryce Harper. That’s a tie for 35th in baseball.
But barrels aren’t the whole story; there’s also the angle of those hits. Pulled fly balls tend to do more damage, and McGonigle ranks in the top 20 for pulled fly ball rate, outpacing players like Isaac Paredes and Alex Bregman, known for maximizing their power through pulled fly balls.
In summary, nine games into his Major League journey, McGonigle is facing a barrage of offspeed and breaking pitches out of the zone, yet he’s walking more than striking out. When he does get a pitch to hit, he’s making hard contact in the air more than 80% of the league and pulling those hits to maximize damage more than 90% of the league.
McGonigle has shown no signs of being fazed by Major League pitching. His approach is one of the most refined and personalized offensive strategies in the game, and it’s being executed by a 21-year-old shortstop with just 46 games of AA experience.
The league is still searching for an answer. If McGonigle keeps this up, they might not find one anytime soon.