The New York Yankees traded former closer Aroldis Chapman to the Chicago Cubs for a package of players and prospects including the Cubs top prospects Gleyber Torres, former Yankee and current Cubs reliever Adam Warren, outfielder Rashad Crawford and the prospect we will meet today, Billy McKinney. If McKinney’s name sounds familiar it is because he is a former first round pick in the 2013 MLB First Year Players Draft and was included in another big trade recently, the trade that sent Jeff Samardzija to the Oakland Athletics. Let’s meet him. This is Meet a Prospect: The Billy McKinney Edition.
Billy McKinney was drafted in the first round of the 2013
MLB First Year Players Draft by the Oakland Athletics as an outfielder. Like we
touched on earlier McKinney was included in the Jeff Samardzija for Addison
Russell swap between the A’s and the Chicago Cubs and was ranked as Baseball
Prospectus’s 74th best prospect prior to the start of the 2016
season.
McKinney has spent the entire season in Double-A for Chicago
and was posting a .252/.355/.322 triple slash with 31 RBI in 88 games at the
time of the trade. These stats are down from his 2015 stat line that saw him
post a .300/.371.454 slash with 64 RBI between High-A and Double-A so hopefully
he can turn things around while wearing pinstripes.
McKinney has a lot of Brett Gardner in him but he may grow
into more of a corner outfielder than the center fielder that he is today. His
left-handed swing is quick and he has great hand-eye coordination and an even
better batters eye which should translate into a lot of walks in his career. He
will hit for contact but the power may never come, and that’s okay as long as
he hits for extra bases every once in a while.
So welcome to the club Billy and more importantly, welcome
to the family. Make us proud, enjoy your stay and we’ll see you in the Bronx
before you know it.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)