Kevin McGonigle's extra draft pick gives Scott Harris, Tigers room to get creative in 2027

Most of the noise around baseball's labor fight centers on the big-ticket items, like the salary cap owners keep pushing, and the lockout that looms when the CBA expires Dec. 1. Those are the fights that make headlines, but the details buried deeper in the agreement can shape a franchise just as much, and the Tigers just proved it.

The Prospect Promotion Incentive was built into the 2022 CBA to rewards teams for promoting prospects instead of manipulating service time. When Detroit decided to put Kevin McGonigle on their Opening Day roster and when he won AL Rookie of the Year on Monday, the club earned a PPI pick right after the first round of the 2027 draft.

Add their regular first-rounder and presumably a Competitive Balance Round A pick, and the Tigers now hold three of the top 40 picks, plus roughly $3 million more in their bonus pool. There's some fun symmetry here, too, since McGonigle himself was a Competitive Balance pick at No. 37 in 2023.

How the Tigers can use their extra 2027 draft picks

I actually know this part of the draft well. In 2010, the Red Sox took Kolbrin Vitek at No. 20, then grabbed Bryce Brentz at 36, and then myself at 39 with compensation picks. I'd entered that spring at LSU as one of the top arms in the country before an elbow injury knocked my stock down, and Boston used its extra pick to sign me for $2.55 million, well above-slot.

That's the beauty of stacked picks in the 30s. They give a front office the flexibility to bet on a player whose talent once graded out near the top of a class.

Scott Harris has shown he's willing to make that kind of bet. His early drafts leaned heavily on up-the-middle high school bats like Max Clark and Bryce Rainer, but in July he went off-script with Cameron Flukey at No. 22. Flukey entered the spring as the top college pitching prospect in the country, but a rib injury limited him to 24 innings, and Detroit got a frontline arm at a discount.

So who could fit that mold next summer? The early boards are loaded with college talent in the 15-to-40 range. LSU right-hander William Schmidt is the most fascinating to me (maybe my LSU bias here). He was the No. 1 high school righty in the 2024 class before he pulled his name from the draft to pitch in Baton Rouge, and last year he made some real strides toward that ceiling. LSU teammate Casan Evans, Mississippi State's Duke Stone, Stanford's Teddy Tokheim, Florida's Jackson Barberi, Matt Ineich (a Michigan kid) at West Virginia and Vanderbilt's Brodie Johnston also sit in that range in one very early ranking.

If Harris returns to his prep roots, Texas shortstop Sebastian Castillo, Florida shortstops Graham Houston and Chase Fuller, and Texas righty George Ferguson are the kinds of high schoolers whose college commitments and NIL leverage could require an over-slot bonus. That's exactly the kind of deal the extra pool money makes possible.

Whatever comes out of the next CBA, Tigers fans should pay attention to the fine print. One rule in the last deal turned a Rookie of the Year trophy into another premium pick, and Harris now has the ammunition to keep stacking talent around his young core.

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