Kevin McGonigle (Mud Hens photo)
The Detroit Tigers are looking to improve in 2026 so they can advance even further than they did last year in the playoffs.
Detroit News veteran baseball writer Lynn Henning writes that there is reason to be excited about the Tigers’ top prospect, Kevin McGonigle, 21, who currently plays for the Toledo Mud Hens.
It can sound like indefensible hype. It can be interpreted as too much anointing too soon. And yet it is quite possible that McGonigle has the best bat-to-ball skills of any Tigers prospect since a man named Al Kaline arrived in 1953. No prospect in recent Tigers generations has shown at this early of an age the ability to hit – hard – pitches of velocity and spin. McGonigle will go to spring camp in February with a chance to convince his bosses there is no option but to bring him north for Opening Day. It remains a longshot.
This Tigers front office prefers to slow-walk its talent to Detroit. It is a challenge compounded by less regard for McGonigle’s defense at short. But in only 46 games last season at Double A Erie, McGonigle showed repeat ability to crush pitches: .254 batting average (give that number light regard), .369 on-base average, .550 slugging, .919 OPS, with 12 home runs and rather awesome corresponding numbers: 16% of his plate-appearances are walks, and only 12.6% of his at-bats are strikeouts. His weighted run-creation-plus (wRC+) mark last season was 162 – 62% above the league norm. This is not your average bear.
Henning also writes about other prospects as well.
Kaline, who hailed from Baltimore, first played for the Tigers at age 18 in 1953. He went on to play for the team until 1974. He was inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1980.Â