Kevin McGonigle Makes Tigers’ Roster; Wenceel Pérez Optioned
12:43pm: The Tigers announced that infielder/outfielder Wenceel Pérez, infielder Jace Jung and outfielder Trei Cruz have all been optioned to Triple-A Toledo. Center fielder Parker Meadows has made the Opening Day roster.
The 26-year-old Pérez is the most notable among the cuts. He was a key contributor in Detroit last year, giving Hinch a defensively versatile switch-hitter who could be deployed at various spots in both the infield and outfield. Pérez played exclusively in the outfield last year but has more than 1800 minor league innings at both middle infield slots and another 259 at third base. In 383 MLB plate appearances, he slashed .244/.308/.430 (103 wRC+) with 13 homers, 17 doubles, four triples and eight steals. Pérez will surely get a long major league look this year as injuries and/or poor performance elsewhere on the roster dictate, but for now he’ll open in Toledo.
Pérez didn’t help his case with a dismal .158/.238/.158 showing in 46 spring plate appearances. With better production, he might’ve edged out Meadows, who struggled at the plate in 2025 and batted only .222/.314/.289 in 52 spring plate appearances. Meadows, however, is a plus defender in center field. Given that he nominally outperformed Pérez with the bat and has a clear defensive edge with the glove, he’ll get the nod for an Opening Day roster spot and look to get back to his 2024 form at the plate (.244/.310/.433).
11:28am: It’s official. The Tigers announced Tuesday that infielder Kevin McGonigle, the consensus No. 2 prospect in baseball, will make their Opening Day roster. The 21-year-old will likely begin the season as Detroit’s shortstop after a spring in which he batted .250/.411/.477 with two homers, two doubles, a triple, two steals and more walks (11) than strikeouts (9) in 56 plate appearances. McGonigle is not on the Tigers’ 40-man roster, so they’ll need to make a corresponding transaction when they formally select his contract.
Selected with the No. 37 overall pick in the 2023 draft, McGonigle has raced through the minors relative to most high school picks. He’s raked at every level from Rookie ball up through Double-A last season despite being one of the youngest players in the league at the most recent stops on his minor league journey. McGonigle totaled 397 plate appearances across three levels in 2025 and slashed .305/.408/.583 with 19 homers, 31 doubles, two triples, 10 steals and more walks than strikeouts.
Scouts rave about McGonigle’s preternatural feel for hitting. He’s never punched out in more than 12.6% of his plate appearances at any minor league stop, and his overall strikeout rate of 10.6% in 908 professional plate appearances speaks volumes about the advanced nature of that hit tool — especially considering his age. McGonigle only turned 21 in mid-August. He’ll play the vast majority of his rookie season before even celebrating his 22nd birthday.
Some scouting reports express skepticism about his ability to stick at shortstop, though he’s continued to get reps there this spring and could yet develop into a quality option at the position. Even if a move to another position — second base, third base, outfield — becomes a necessity somewhere down the line, McGonigle’s bat is so highly regarded that it doesn’t matter. He’s viewed as a fixture in the top half of the Detroit lineup for the foreseeable future, regardless of his ultimate defensive home.
Since he’s breaking camp with the club and is a consensus top prospect, McGonigle could net the Tigers some future draft considerations via the league’s Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) program. A Rookie of the Year win in 2026 or a top-three finish in MVP voting in any of McGonigle’s pre-arbitration seasons would net the Tigers an extra draft selection after the first round the following season. (Prospects can only net their team one bonus pick overall.)
Assuming McGonigle sticks on Detroit’s roster all season, he’ll accrue a full year of service and be under club control through the 2031 season. He’d be eligible for arbitration following the 2028 season as things stand. Of course, those timetables are subject to change.
McGonigle will have a full slate of three minor league option years upon being formally added to the roster, and Detroit could always look to extend its window of club control with a long-term deal, be it early in his MLB tenure or during subsequent springs, when McGonigle is still years from the open market. It’ll take a hefty offer to do so in all likelihood, as McGonigle is currently slated to reach free agency ahead of his age-27 season, which would put him in line for a mammoth contract if he reaches his ceiling (or anything close to it).
In addition to his work at shortstop, McGonigle also saw time at third base this spring. Detroit doesn’t have set starters at either position, so he could bounce between both spots. McGonigle, Javier Baez and Zach McKinstry are all capable of playing short and third base. Colt Keith can play third base, second base or first base. Matt Vierling is capable of playing third base or the outfield. Manager A.J. Hinch will have no shortage of matchup-based options with that contingent on hand, but regardless of which defensive spot he occupies on a given day, McGonigle should be expected to be in Hinch’s lineup.
Tigers Designate Six Relievers For Assignment
The Tigers designated six relief pitchers for assignment: Dugan Darnell, Jack Little, Sean Guenther, Jason Foley, Tanner Rainey and Tyler Mattison. They added five prospects to the roster to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft: Hao-Yu Lee, Thayron Liranzo, Trei Cruz, Eduardo Valencia and Jake Miller. The sixth roster spot is filled by Gleyber Torres, who officially accepted the qualifying offer.
Liranzo, 22, isn’t too far removed from being one of the better catching prospects in the game. The Tigers landed him alongside Trey Sweeney in the 2024 deadline deal that sent Jack Flaherty to Los Angeles. He’d posted a .378 on-base percentage that season but dropped to a .206/.308/.351 slash line in 88 games with Double-A Erie this year. The Tigers weren’t going to jump ship after one bad year, but he may need to repeat Double-A.
Lee, a 22-year-old infielder out of Taiwan, came over from Philadelphia in the 2023 Michael Lorenzen deadline trade. He spent the entire season at Triple-A Toledo, where he hit .243/.342/.406 across 579 trips to the dish. He walked at a strong 11.2% clip while striking out 21% of the time. Lee can’t play shortstop and isn’t going to have a path to second base playing time behind Torres. His best chance of carving out MLB playing time in 2026 comes at third base.
Cruz gets a 40-man spot for the first time going into his age-27 season. The Tigers had left the former third-round pick unprotected in the past two offseasons. The switch-hitting infielder, the son of former big league outfielder José Cruz, earned his way onto the roster with a breakout year in the upper minors. Cruz hit .279/.411/.456 while leading all minor league hitters with 102 walks between the top two levels. The Rice product can play both left side infield positions and has the athleticism to play some center field.
Valencia is a 25-year-old catcher/first baseman who posted a monster .311/.382/.559 slash line between Erie and Toledo. He blasted 24 home runs while keeping his strikeout rate around 20%. The Venezuela native has never been viewed as much of a prospect, but the offensive performance in the high minors was too much to ignore.
Miller, a 24-year-old lefty, ranked 16th in the Detroit system at MLB Pipeline. An eighth-round pick in 2022 out of Valparaiso, he has shown an intriguing three-pitch mix with enough command and deception to project as a starter. Miller was limited to six starts between High-A and Double-A this year by a back injury, but Detroit likes him enough to keep him as a developmental play. He should begin next season in Erie.
Getting all those players onto the roster required cutting most of their depth relievers. Little and Darnell were just claimed off waivers. Detroit knew they’d be likely non-tenders but could try to bring them back on minor league deals. That’s also the case for Mattison, whom they kept out of the Rule 5 draft last winter but who had a middling year in the minors. Guenther has been up and down for the past couple seasons and missed the second half of 2025 recovering from hip surgery.
Rainey is a journeyman righty who cracked Detroit’s big league bullpen in the final week of the season. He’s narrowly shy of six years of service and therefore could have been retained via arbitration. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projected a modest $1.2MM salary, but Rainey is looking at minor league deals as a free agent.
Foley was probably the toughest cut. He’d been a valuable late-innings arm between 2021-24, a run which he capped off by saving 28 games last year. Foley missed all of ’25 recovering from shoulder surgery, and he would have been set to match this year’s $3.15MM salary if they tendered him a contract. They opted not to do so and are likely to cut him loose on Friday, though they have the next few days to see if there’s any trade interest.
Evan Petzold of The Detroit Free-Press first reported the Cruz, Valencia and Miller additions.