When and if the Pirates place McKenry on the 25-man roster, he will be the 4th "Mc" on the big league club. He'll join Andrew McCutchen, Daniel McCutchen, and James McDonald on the team with more McStuds than any team in any major sport. That's what I'm McTalking about.
Alright, now I guess we can talk a little bit about the player himself.
McKenry was drafted in the 7th round of the 2006 draft by the Colorado Rockies. He played a year at A- ball and hit .216/.303/.339 with 4 homers in 66 games in 2006. He was promoted to A ball in 2007 and hit .287/.392/.539 with 22 homers and 90 RBi in a 113 game season. After that he went to A+ ball in 2008 and hit .258/.360/.468 with 18 homers. He kept advancing and hit .279/.376/.455 with 12 homers in 2009 in AA. McKenry finished up his career in the Rockies organization in 2010 at the AAA level, hitting .265/.328/.424 with 10 homers in 99 games. He made a brief major league appearance that year, when he went hitless in 8 at bats. This year McKenry has been playing in the Boston Red Sox AAA affiliate at Pawtucket. He's done pretty well, hitting .280/.370/.430 with 3 homers in 28 games. Here's the full numbers:
| Year | Age | Lev | Aff | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 21 | A- | COL | 66 | 290 | 245 | 28 | 53 | 16 | 1 | 4 | 23 | 22 | 49 | .216 | .303 | .339 |
| 2007 | 22 | A | COL | 113 | 485 | 408 | 79 | 117 | 35 | 1 | 22 | 90 | 66 | 84 | .287 | .392 | .539 |
| 2008 | 23 | A+ | COL | 111 | 472 | 400 | 59 | 103 | 28 | 1 | 18 | 75 | 55 | 101 | .258 | .360 | .468 |
| 2009 | 24 | AA | COL | 102 | 417 | 358 | 52 | 100 | 25 | 1 | 12 | 50 | 54 | 69 | .279 | .376 | .455 |
| 2010 | 25 | AAA | COL | 99 | 384 | 347 | 44 | 92 | 23 | 1 | 10 | 49 | 32 | 77 | .265 | .328 | .424 |
| 2011 | 26 | AAA | BOS | 28 | 108 | 93 | 10 | 26 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 12 | 13 | 24 | .280 | .370 | .430 |
| 6 Seasons | 519 | 2156 | 1851 | 272 | 491 | 132 | 5 | 69 | 299 | 242 | 404 | .265 | .357 | .454 | |||
This guy isn't by any stretch a top prospect or even a guy that you can expect to be a starter in the big leagues, but he certainly seems like an upgrade from the Dusty Brown/Wyatt Toregas combination the Pirates are fielding right now. McKenry can hit the ball deep, although his power numbers have fallen every year while his batting average has fluctuated. You probably won't see this guy come up and mash 5 home runs in a month, but as I said, he's a better stick than Brown/Toregas, so you can't really complain about the move.
Now this acquisition isn't even verified yet, so we don't know what the Pirates lost or if this deal is even 100% completed. However, it's certainly good news for the Bucs, unless you were expecting them to go out and get somebody better, which just wasn't possible because the asking price from the Pirates was ridiculous because of their desperation, and it would have been foolish to give up a lot for a good major league catcher when you have Tony Sanchez in the minor leagues ready to be a big leaguer at some point next year.
I'm glad the Pirates made a move quickly after the injury to Chris Snyder. Sure, McKenry isn't the ideal guy and there's a very good chance he'll struggle in the major leagues, but right now it's hard to say he's worse than what we currently have, and it's worth giving him a shot at least until Jason Jaramillo gets healthy again.
And at the end of the day, win or lose, the Pirates added another "Mc" to the team, so it's a great night.