Trey McGough

TREY McGOUGH, LEFT HANDED PITCHER
Born: March 29, 1998
Height: 6’3″
Weight: 195
Bats: Left
Throws: Left
Drafted: 24th Round, 724th Overall, 2019
How Acquired: Draft
College: Mount St Mary’s University (MD)
Agent:

WTM’s PLAYER PROFILE
McGough saw a few starts as a freshman at Mount St Mary’s, but he moved into the rotation full-time as a sophomore. He knocked his ERA down from 8.31 to 5.31 that season, working 76.1 innings, with 80 hits, 41 walks and 62 strikeouts. As a junior, he saw a slight decrease in the ERA and a small uptick in the strikeouts, but the real area of improvement was his control. He cut his walks in half, bring them down to 18 in 68.1 innings this year.  McGough throws in the upper-80s, and adds a slider, curve and change.  All of his pitches are around average, but he gets the most out of them due to good command.

2019
R+:  2-0-1, 1.04 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 17.1 IP, 2.6 BB/9, 13.5 K/9
A-:  1-1-0, 7.04 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 15.1 IP, 2.3 BB/9, 8.8 K/9

McGough got off to a very good start at Bristol and the Pirates moved him up to West Virginia at the end of July.  He was much more erratic there.  For instance, in his next-to-last outing he threw four scoreless innings, fanning eight.  In his last outing, he gave up seven hits and five runs in one inning.  He got hammered by right-handed hitters, who batted .325 against him.

2020
DNP

2021
A+:  0-0-0, 2.00 ERA, 0.89 WHIP, 18.0 IP, 2.0 BB/9, 6.5 K/9
AA:  6-5-0, 3.41 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, 95.0 IP, 2.0 BB/9, 7.3 K/9

McGough had a surprising season, starting it in the Greensboro bullpen but spending most of it in the Altoona rotation.  After pitching well through six games, including one start, he moved up and pitched 18 games for the Curve, all of them as a starter.  After his first two starts in AA, which were shaky but not terrible, McGough had only one bad start.  He finished with three strong September starts, giving up just one run and nine hits in 17 innings, with 17 strikeouts.  He didn’t strike out a lot of batters overall, but he walked very few and generally kept the ball in the park, allowing seven home runs for Altoona and one for Greensboro.  He had only a mild platoon split.

2022
AAA:  1-0-0, 3.06 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 17.2 IP, 2.0 BB/9, 6.6 K/9

McGough got off to a good start with Indianapolis.  He made three relief appearances and then started getting stretched out as a starter.  He had one bad game in which he allowed five earned runs in an inning and two-thirds, but in his other seven games he gave up just one run in 16 innings.  Unfortunately, his last start was on May 20 and then he went on the injured list.  A month later he had Tommy John surgery.

McGough came out of nowhere in 2021 and was going well in 2022, so the injury was very unfortunate.  Given the timing of the surgery, there’s a good chance he won’t return until 2024.

CONTRACT INFORMATION
2023: Minor league contract
PLAYER INFORMATION
Signing Bonus:
MiLB Debut: 2019
MLB Debut:
MiLB FA Eligible: 2025
MLB FA Eligible:
Rule 5 Eligible: 2022
Added to 40-Man:
Options Remaining: 3
MLB Service Time: 0.000
TRANSACTIONS
June 5, 2019: Drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 24th round, 724th overall pick; signed on June 12.