Opening Day, Development, and Building the Right Roster

Welcome to the Show

Opening Day.

My favorite holiday. New season. Clean slate. Everyone believes this could be the year. And one of the most fun parts every year is seeing who earns their way onto the Opening Day roster.

This year, one of those names was Kevin McGonigle. Welcome to The Show!

Over the last year, the conversation around him wasn’t about whether he could hit. He had one of the highest scouted hitting grades in years and already showed elite control of the strike zone. The question was where he fit long term. Specifically, defensively.

That’s where a lot of organizations get uncomfortable. We recognize a high performer, but how do they fit long term – especially when they don’t have the tools for a specific role? When someone is clearly talented, it’s easy to focus on what they already do well. It’s harder to stay disciplined and develop the part of their game that determines whether or not they can succeed at the next level.

Instead of avoiding the question, the Tigers leaned into it. They focused on it. They developed it. By the end of Spring Training, what was once a concern started to look like a strength. Diving plays. Clean double plays. Confidence in the field.

That’s not just talent.

That’s development done right.

Scouting vs. Building

Organizations love to talk about bringing in talent. Finding it. Recruiting it. Hiring it.

There’s an energy around it at the upper levels. It has high visibility and feels like progress. But outside talent alone doesn’t build strong teams. Development does.

The Tigers didn’t just identify a strong player. They invested in improving the part of his game that would determine whether he could stay on the field long term.

That’s the part of the process that is often missed – but, it’s what strong organizations do. It’s not just identifying who has potential. It’s a willingness to spend time on the areas that aren’t ready yet.

The best teams don’t ignore weaknesses.

They don’t work around them.

They develop them.

Free Agents and Farm Systems

Opening Day rosters are built two ways: Internal development and outside additions (free agents).

Does that sound familiar in the business world? In any organization, you have the same two options: promote from within or bring in experience from the outside. Both matter. The mistake isn’t in choosing one over the other. The mistake is misunderstanding what each provides and how they collaborate to develop the best teams.

Free agents can raise the ceiling. They bring experience, perspective, and immediate impact. They can solve problems quickly and change the trajectory of the team.

But development builds the foundation. (Link to FREE Members-Only page.)

It creates consistency. It builds trust. It produces people who understand how things work within internal systems – not just what the job description says.

When you grow your own talent, you’re not just filling positions. You’re building people who understand your standards, your expectations, and your environment.

And when it works, you don’t just fill a role.

You grow someone into it.

The Defensive Reps

Development isn’t a general concept. It’s not a mindset or a value statement. And most importantly – it’s not something that happens automatically just because someone has demonstrated potential.

It’s intentional.

In baseball, that might look like focused reps on a specific part of the game. Extra time in the cage. More groundballs, throws across the diamond, or fly balls in the gap. Targeted coaching on positioning, footwork, or decision-making.

It’s not random improvement – it’s directed development.

The same is true in leadership. Development doesn’t happen because someone is promoted. It happens because someone takes the time to work on the parts of a role that don’t come naturally yet to an individual high performer.

That could mean learning how to handle conflict instead of avoiding it. It could be learning how to give feedback clearly instead of hoping behavior changes on it’s own or over-reliance on disciplinary records. And it is often learning how to lead people that don’t think, work, or respond the way that you do.

Those are the defensive reps of developing leadership.

They’re not always comfortable and they don’t always produce immediate results. But that’s the difference between sports and business. In the sports world, we are taught to embrace the uncomfortable as part of our development from a young age. “No Pain, No Gain.” Whereas, when we get into the business world, avoiding uncomfortable becomes much more the norm.

The organizations that get this right don’t just put people into bigger roles and hope that they figure it out. They stay engaged in the development process.

They identify what needs to improve. They create opportunities to work on it. And they follow through until it becomes a strength.

That’s how question marks turn into roster spots.

Playing the Long Game

The organizations that sustain success aren’t the ones that rely only on outside additions. They’re the ones that consistently develop their own people.

They identify potential.

They invest in growth.

They stay committed to improvement – even when it would be easier to look elsewhere.

Because development doesn’t always show immediate results. It can feel slower, less visible. It requires trust in the process. But over time, it compounds.

And when it does, it becomes the difference between organizations that live in constant reaction-mode and those that are built upon sustainable success.

Opening Day reminds us of what’s possible.

Not just because of who made the roster, but because of how they got there.

Go, Tigers!