Detroit Tigers’ rookie Kevin McGonigle has put together a pretty incredible campaign in his first season of major league baseball. He hasn’t just led the rookie class in the maor leagues all year long, he’s done things few players his age have ever accomplished. Even so, the fact that he just turned 22 years old doesn’t really enter into the picture unless voters decide to put some weight on his age as a tiebreaker. McGonigle appears to have the award locked up, but Cleveland Guardians rookie left-hander
Parker Messick also deserves some serious consideration, and he remains McGonigle’s top competition for the award in the final week of the regular season.
Right now, the oddsmakers don’t see this as a contest at all. Bet MGM has McGonigle at -3000 to win the AL Rookie of the Year award, while Messick is at +1500 to win. ESPN and several other sites agree with that assessment.
McGonigle entered the season as the Tigers’ top prospect and more than lived up to the billing. He hit the ground running in late March and April and really never stopped hitting. He slumped somewhat in May and again in August, but even his slumps were instructive, as McGonigle at his worst never went into a real funk for long. Even better, his work with Tigers’ Hall of Fame shortstop, Alan Trammell, in the 2025 Arizona Fall League paid dividends in the field. One of the few questions about him as a prospect was whether he could hold down the shortstop position, or whether he’d need to shift to second or third base. Instead, McGonigle improved his footwork and overall efficiency on defense, and did a nice job playing an even mix of shortstop and third base throughout his rookie season.
The standout number for McGonigle is his outstanding .376 on-base percentage, but just as impressive is his 13.5 percent strikeout rate, compared to his 13.7 percent walk rate. He’s hit for just average power, with 17 home runs and a .149 isolated power mark, but the long, pesky at-bats with minimal strikeouts, and his constant presence on the bases, have made him a true headache for opposing teams to deal with all season long. McGonigle holds a stellar 128 wRC+ overall, and a 121 wRC+ while playing shortstop, placing him fourth amongst all major league players with a 100 plate appearances as a shortstop. Of the three shortstops currently ahead of him in wRC+, only Elly De La Cruz graded out better than McGonigle defensively.
Meanwhile, McGonigle has played 601 innings as a third baseman as of this writing. He’s racked up 7 defensive runs saved (DRS) per Sports Info Solutions, while Statcast has him at -2 outs above average (OAA). He’s played 675.2 innings at shortstop, compiling a +2 DRS with a -1 OAA mark. Those differences in marks from different systems aren’t very far apart, and it’s fair to say that McGonigle has been roughly an average defender at both positions.
For a hitter this talented to be solid at both of the two most difficult spots on the infield, and to be able to comfortably flex between them as a rookie in his age 21 season is extremely impressive. At no point has McGonigle really felt like a rookie. Instead, he immediately stepped into the major leagues as a foundational piece, able to thrive in all facets of the game and even making things easier for his manager by tackling both shortstop and third base as needed. With four games remaining, he’s basically a lock to top Harvey Kuehn’s 1953 franchise record for reaching base in a rookie season.
All tallied up, McGonigle has been worth 6.7 rWAR from Baseball Reference as a rookie in one of the all-time great rookie campaigns in MLB history, particularly for such a rookie who was 21 years old for most of the season. By FanGraphs, McGonigle is at 5.1 fWAR prior to Tuesday’s matchup with the Washington Nationals.
By contrast, the 25-year-old Messick has been worth 5.8 rWAR, with one start left in his rookie regular season. Yes, the Guardians pitching factory has done it again. He’s also at 4.6 fWAR, though his solid five inning start with one earned run on Tuesday will give these numbers a little boost.
Messick has 178.1 innings across 30 starts with a 12-9 record and a 2.57 ERA/3.11 FIP combination. His 26.2 percent strikeout rate is good rather than great, but still ranks him 15th best among qualified starters. Even better, he’s done it while walking just 6.6 percent of hitters and keeping a well below average home run rate of 0.86 home runs per nine innings (HR/9). Dylan Cease of the Blue Jays and Cam Schlitter of the Yankees are probably in a two-man race for the AL Cy Young, but Messick, as well as a resurgent season from the Rangers’ Jacob deGrom, aren’t too far behind.
Messick is certainly the best rookie pitcher in the American League. I think the contest between the two is closer than their WAR totals say, and the odds should probably not be quite so far apart, but even so he’s been outpaced by McGonigle’s steady production in all phases of the game. If there’s one additional argument Messick lobbyists will point to, it’s the fact that Messick has helped the Guardians get to the postseason, while McGonigle’s brilliant debut has been for naught in that regard. Still, this isn’t a team award, and typically that sort of thing doesn’t play into the equation.
Even so, it’s important to note that Messick is having a pretty historic rookie season of his own. As pointed out by MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince on Tuesday, the last rookie pitcher to make 30 starts with a 2.60 ERA or lower was Dwight Gooden back in 1984. Maybe he goes on to have a great postseason as well, but the votes are placed before the postseason begins, so that won’t be a factor.
Kevin McGonigle was the top ranked prospect in baseball who debuted this season in the American League, and second only to the Pirates’ Konnor Griffin, who didn’t do a whole lot and missed a big chunk of the season to injury. McGonigle had all the hype and all the pressure on him coming into Opening Day. He’s done nothing but live up to every bit of it while conducting himself like a seasoned professional since arriving in camp back in Februrary. We’ve witnessed one of the all-time great seasons for a player his age, and he’s stood out above the pack against fellow rookies who are anywhere from 2-4 years older. Even better, the eight-year extension signed in April means Tigers fans will be rooting for McGonigle well into the mid 2030’s, at least.
Should this turn out as expected and McGonigle wins AL ROY, the Tigers will get a prospect promotion incentive pick for promoting McGonigle to the major leagues for the whole season, so this has implications for the whole team as well. The Tigers will then have a first round pick in the lottery pool, and two picks in the competitive balance round A, setting themselves up for a potentially monstrous draft. Certainly it’s not guaranteed that McGonigle is going to win, but he’s clearly the front runner and there really isn’t anything Messick can do to close the gap.
Rookie of the Year voting consists of 60 writers in the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, with two from each franchise’s coverage. Voting occurs before the start of the postseason. So votes will be locked in by early next week, but we’ll have to wait until November to find out the results.
