It only took a week for Major League pitchers to realize they had a problem: how on Earth do you get Kevin McGonigle out? Examining his minor league track record gives no obvious answer. As a 20 year old last year, he posted a combined .305/.408/.583 slash line and a 1.28 BB/K ratio between High-A and AA. He hit 19 home runs in 88 games which put him roughly on track for 35 in a full season. Really, all that slowed him down was an ankle injury early in the year, and a .230 BABIP once he got to AA. Here’s
a reminder that the average BABIP in the majors is typically around .290. Here’s a second reminder that McGonigle posted a .919 OPS at AA with batted ball fortune similar to Martin Maldonado. Nobody had an answer.
It turns out, they still don’t. The initial game plan has been to give McGonigle the classic rookie treatment: let him get himself out! Currently, pitchers are throwing McGonigle pitches in the strike zone only 40.1% of the time, the 11th lowest in all of baseball. There’s a few ways I’d like to contextualize that, one for comedic effect and the other for practical effect.
The comedic: Javy Baez saw strikes 46.4% of the time last year. Pitchers are throwing Baez more strikes than McGonigle.
The practical: here’s a list of the 10 guys getting fewer strikes than McGonigle right now. You’ll recognize most of them.
That list is, basically, a young prospect that makes Baez look patient, 8 fantastic hitters, and Josh Smith. We’re a week into his major league career, and McGonigle is getting fewer strikes than Trout, Harper, Judge… you get the point. To further that point, literally only Luisangel Acuna is getting fewer fourseam fastballs than McGonigle. Here they are, if you’re curious. From here, it looks like they’re scared.
The game plan is obvious: don’t give the rookie anything to hit. He’ll be overwhelmed by MLB offspeed pitches. He’s only 21! There’s just one issue with this plan.
It isn’t working at all.
McGonigle’s towards the top of a lot of lists right now. The one I’ll call now is BB/K ratio. Right now, McGonigle is 23rd in BB/K ratio at a whopping 1.20. His chase rate is in the 75th percentile, while his whiff rate is in the 92nd. Throw him a pitch out of the zone and he take it. He’s currently bending to no pressure to hit his way aboard, prove himself, carry the lineup; whatever adage you prefer for a rookie trying to adjust, he doesn’t fit into it. McGonigle’s plenty comfortable taking a walk instead of chasing for bad contact.
Of course, that mindset often bleeds into passivity at the plate. Go up there looking for a walk, and you might forget to get a hit, right? Not here. McGonigle is being super selective, but he has not forgotten to hit. Despite only seeing approximately two pitches to hit per game, McGonigle is making the most of them.
The classic slashline .303/.410/.455 tells a clear enough story: the kid’s hitting and walking a ton, and the power hasn’t quite shown up yet in full. Of course, he does have at least one, maybe two robbed home runs, so that .455 could easily be .500+ instead. At this time of year, process is more important than results anyways, and his process stats do not disappoint.
The simplest place to look is barrel rate. How often does McGonigle hit the ball 98+ mph in the air?. A lot of the time. 10.3% of his PAs, to be precise, the same as Vlad Guerrero Jr and Bryce Harper. That’s a multi-way tie for 35th in baseball. Now, what’s interesting is that barrels don’t account for the third major dimension on baseball: spray angle.
You’ve probably heard that pulled fly balls do more damage, go for home runs more, or are generally better than those to center or the other way. There’s a lot of theories for why – ballpark dimensions, topspin versus backspin adding distance, a more efficient transfer of energy to the baseball bumping exit velocities – but we know it’s true. The easiest way to get more out of your aerial contact is to pull it. Guess what else McGonigle is good at?
Yup, the kid is also posting a top-20 “pulled fly ball” rate on his batted balls. He’s currently out-pulled-flyballing Isaac Paredes and Alex Bregman, the kings of turning mediocre raw power into production on the backs of pulled fly balls. If you’re looking for home run damage, having a high barrel rate and a high pulled air rate is the best combination I could imagine.
Let’s recap: 9 games into his Major League career, McGonigle is: getting spammed offspeed and breaking pitches out of the zone and walking more than he’s striking out. On top of that, when he does get a pitch to drive, he’s hitting the ball hard in the air more than 80% of the league and pulling his air contact more than 90% if the league to maximize his damage potential.
McGonigle has not flinched against major league pitching yet. This is one of the most personally-optimized offensive gameplans in the sport, and it’s currently being implemented by a 21 year old shortstop with 46 games at AA. As things stand, the rest of the league hasn’t found a solution yet. If his early season gameplan persists, there might not be one.
