Toledo — They’ve been joined at the hip for practically their entire time together in the Tigers’ organization, since they were drafted in the first round in 2023, 34 picks apart. They moved up the food chain side by side, from Low-A Lakeland to High-A West Michigan to Double-A Erie to, this spring, major-league camp.
That’s where the first significant separation occurred for two 21-year-olds, two of the game’s top prospects. At camp’s end, Kevin McGonigle went north to Detroit, and Max Clark went slightly but significantly less north, to Toledo.
But on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Toledo, there’s still not a ton of daylight between the two good friends. As Clark and his Mud Hens teammates took batting practice at Fifth Third Field, the afternoon’s Tigers game was playing on the giant videoboard in left field, the Detroit SportsNet score graphic showing Detroit beating Miami, thanks to a first-inning rally started by a McGonigle double.
McGonigle is off to a fast start with the Tigers, with an .817 OPS and seven extra-base hits and seven RBIs through his first 15 major-league games, and if it’s a surprise to anybody, let it be known it’s not to Clark.
“I mean, it’s just Kevin McGonigle for you,” Clark said with a big smile Saturday, speaking to The Detroit News before a night game against St. Paul. “We all tried to tell you guys early on that he’s gonna be a star.
“You know, he’s a baller. He’s the man.”
McGonigle, who rose to the consensus No. 2 prospect in baseball before the start of the 2026 season, has always been projected as a guy who could and would hit at the major-league level. And he showcased that from jump street in 2026, with four hits in his major-league debut on Opening Day in San Diego last month.
A bigger question always has been his defense. Not just if he could play good enough defense, but where he would play defense, after moving around from short to second to third during his rise up the Tigers’ system.
And it’s actually been the defense that has created nearly as much buzz as the bat in Detroit, none more than the play he made in Friday’s game against Miami, when McGonigle, who’ll play more shortstop now with Parker Meadows injured and Javy Baez slipping more into center field, ranged far to his right to snag a grounder, jumped and threw a strike to first base for the out. Clark texted McGonigle about it Friday night. He called the play “sick.”
“And he sent me back (a text), like, ‘A little (Derek) Jeter-ish?’ And I was like, yeah, that’s probably a good for word for it,” Clark said. “It was really cool.
“Yes, he can play defense. He’s played defense throughout the entire minor leagues. It was always undervalued.”
Gabe Alvarez, the manager of the Toledo Mud Hens, agreed with Clark’s assessment. While Alvarez never did manage McGonigle, they worked together this spring, as Alvarez worked with a lot of the infielders.
He said McGonigle has turned himself into a “plus defender.”
“When you’re in the minor leagues, nobody really talks about anyone’s defense, especially in the infield. They just want to talk about the at-bats, about the hitting and your OPS and your stolen bases,” Alvarez said. “They want the offensive numbers. But he’s a plus defender.
“I mean, he is as good as advertised. And not surprising, having worked with him. … He’s a kid with a tremendous drive. He wants to be great and he brings that with him. He brings that attitude with him every day to the ballpark.
“He just wants to get better and be great.”
McGonigle had started 15 of the Tigers’ 16 games through Sunday, eight starts at shortstop and seven starts at third base. In one game, he switched from short to third late in the game. The one game he didn’t start, he entered late and played shortstop.
He’s been a surprisingly steady force, on offense and defense, for a Tigers team that didn’t expect him to make the team out of spring training, given he had never played at Triple-A Toledo. He’s played a big role in many of the Tigers’ wins in their sluggish 6-9 start heading into Sunday.
Clark, meanwhile, is off to a scorching start himself, with a 1.039 OPS, nine extra-base hits, seven RBIs and six stolen bases through Toledo’s first 13 games. He already has five outfield assists from center field, though when Meadows went to the injured list after that scary outfield collision last week, the Tigers turned to Wenceel Perez for the callup and not Clark. Made sense. Perez is on the 40-man roster and has the major-league experience, while Clark is still getting things figured out after a spring camp that was more challenging than McGonigle’s. But Clark looks forward to the day when he and McGonigle are teammates again, just like it always was, until lately.
“Oh, it’ll be great. Obviously, you know, we came up together, we’ve known each other since we were 15, won a gold medal together (WBSC Under-18 Baseball World Cup in 2022), and I think we want to win a couple bigger things together, too,” said Clark, the No. 8 prospect in baseball, per MLB Pipeline, who most experts expect to debut with the Tigers at some point this summer, if not before. “We’re all excited for when it does come.
“But, for now, we’re just putting a foot forward each and every day.”
So far in 2026, they’ve been putting their best foot forward.
Even if they’re not in lockstep anymore.
tpaul@detroitnews.com
@tonypaul1984
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Nobody is less surprised by Tigers’ Kevin McGonigle than Max Clark: ‘He’s a baller’
Reporting by Tony Paul, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
