Scouts and fans alike will always find themselves questioning the power potential of a hitter that’s 5’9” and 185 lbs. This isn’t exactly the build one imagines when picturing a powerful slugger. Yet the metrics indicate that despite his stature, Kevin McGonigle is just that.

Baseball America gave Kevin McGonigle a well-deserved 80 grade hit tool—something that hasn’t been given out since Vladimir Guerrero Jr. His power is usually given around a 60–perhaps a 65–by various prospect rankings.

This is certainly above average and nothing to scoff at, however it may still be doing Kevin McGonigle a disservice.

The Fangraphs minor league leaderboard will allow you to search back to 2006. Filtering the search to reflect all hitters age 20 or younger to have at least 200 plate appearances in AA gives just 145 results. If you filter further to show just the players with a walk rate of 16% or higher, he is one of four. Add in a filter for a strikeout rate under 13% and he stands alone.

Most interesting, however is if you filter by ISO. For those who aren’t aware, ISO is a metric that is meant to measure raw power, and it’s calculated by subtracting batting average from slugging. If we were to remove the walk rate and strikeout rate filters from our search and instead filter by an ISO of .290 (a really high number), we get just six names.

• Giancarlo Stanton (2010): .417 ISO

• Javier Baez (2013): .344 ISO

• Miguel Sano (2013): .335 ISO

• Eric Hosmer (2010): .303 ISO

• Kevin McGonigle (2025): .296 ISO

• Joey Gallo (2014): .292 ISO

These are some of the most prolific power hitters of the last two decades, and McGonigle finds himself right in the middle of them. Now, if you rank this group by their strikeout rate…

• Kevin McGonigle: 12.6%

• Eric Hosmer: 12.8%

• Giancarlo Stanton: 22.1%

• Javier Baez: 28.7%

• Miguel Sano: 29.3%

• Joey Gallo: 39.5%

Now their walk rate:

• Giancarlo Stanton: 18.3%

• Kevin Mcgonigle: 16.0%

• Miguel Sano: 13.0%

• Joey Gallo: 12.4%

• Javier Baez: 7.9%

• Eric Hosmer: 7.1%

You’ve probably noticed while analyzing these numbers that McGonigle possesses a rare combination. This level of raw power is not often—pretty much never—accompanied by the low K% and high BB% that McGonigle has put up. In fact, he probably profiles most similarly to someone like Michael Brantley in terms of his K/BB ratio and hit tool.

So is Kevin McGonigle the version of Michael Brantley that possessed Joey Gallo’s raw power? That would be a scary combination.

Perhaps McGonigle won’t be a 40+ home run hitter like some of the other players on that list. Maybe pitchers in the majors will find and exploit a weakness that has yet to be exposed. But personally, I doubt that.

I think we are looking at a future perennial All-Star. A guy who has the ability to put forth a Hall of Fame career. Of course, so much has to go right for that. Baseball is a hard game and anything can happen. But the tools are there for McGonigle to be a hitter unlike many we’ve seen in the modern age.

He might be small in stature, but his impact could be massive.