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Toronto Blue Jays: Billy McKinney’s wild, strange trip

By Benjamin Chase

SECAUCUS, NJ - JUNE 06 : Oakland Athletics draftee Billy McKinney (L) poses for a photograph with Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig at the 2013 MLB First-Year Player Draft at the MLB Network on June 6, 2013 in Secaucus, New Jersey. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)
SECAUCUS, NJ - JUNE 06 : Oakland Athletics draftee Billy McKinney (L) poses for a photograph with Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig at the 2013 MLB First-Year Player Draft at the MLB Network on June 6, 2013 in Secaucus, New Jersey. (Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images) /
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Toronto Blue Jays
16 AUG 2014: Billy McKinney of the Cubs in action during the Florida State League game between the Daytona Cubs and the Tampa Yankees at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon SMI/Corbis via Getty Images) /

Time with the Chicago Cubs organization

While Addison Russell was up to Chicago in 2015 and helped to spark the team to a playoff run while Straily was traded as part of a deal to bring Dexter Fowler to Chicago, McKinney would be more humble in his introduction to the Cubs organization.

The remainder of the 2014 season, McKinney was a standout for Daytona in the Florida State League as a teenager, hitting .301/.390/.432 in the power-starved league, knocking out just 1 home run, but pounding the gaps for 12 doubles and 4 triples over 51 games. Overall in 2014, he totaled a .264/.354/.412 with 11 home runs and 6 stolen bases, posting a 61/100 BB/K ratio over 543 plate appearances.

He got national notice for his late-season play as a teen, ranking as the #83 prospect in baseball for Baseball America, #88 for MLB Pipeline, and #81 for Baseball Prospectus.

McKinney struggled with injury to open the 2015 season, but he was able to hit well with the new Cubs high-A affiliate in Myrtle Beach of the Carolina League once he returned, posting a .340/.432/.544 over 29 games with a 17/13 BB/K ratio. He received a promotion to AA Tennessee, and he didn’t really slow down, hitting .285/.346/.420 with very good gap power, pounding out 26 doubles in 77 games.

Combined in the 2015 season, McKinney hit .300/.371/.454 with 31 doubles and 7 home runs, posting an impressive 44/60 BB/K ratio over 433 plate appearances. However, his lack of home run power seemed to drop him off of the radar for most lists, with only Baseball Prospectus keeping McKinney on their offseason list, ranking him #71 overall.

With an impressive young club in Chicago coming off a playoff run in 2015, McKinney certainly thought his success in AA would give him a leg up on working toward a late-season role on the 2016 team and certainly a AAA assignment, but instead, he returned to AA. Whether it was due to boredom due to repeating the level or effects from a number of rumored nagging injuries, though McKinney never went on the DL.

McKinney was hitting .252/.355/.322 with just one home run in 88 games with Tennessee when the Cubs made a move to send McKinney to the New York Yankees in a package of players that once again included a highly-touted infielder for pitching. The Cubs sent McKinney, Rashad Crawford, Gleyber Torres, and Adam Warren for Yankees star reliever Aroldis Chapman.

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