9-News: 39.011 – McKinney Inks Three-Season Deal

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9-News: 39.011 – McKinney Inks Three-Season Deal

Post by RonCo » Mon Jun 17, 2019 12:32 pm

$8.25M Blitzes Arbitration For Former Gilstrom Winner


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After watching what Rob Thomas went through this arbitration season, outfielder Andy McKinney decided he wanted no part of that. He agreed to a three season extension that will carry him through those arbitration years and still leave him a free agent in 2043. The deal was for a flat $8.25M dollars, slightly back loaded.

Reaction around the league was immediate: The Nine ripped him off.

McKinney won the 2037 Gillstrom award as a rookie (naturally), while dropping a 5.3 WAR season that even garnered some conversation about a Puckett or (gasp) Silk award. Some fans were talking about how this might soon become McKinney’s team, and the term “emerging superstar” was attached to his introduction everywhere he went.

A horrendous yo-yo of a first half in 2038, however, sidetracked everything. He OPSed .640 in May and .645 in July. Suddenly fans were booing, and he was losing playing time to aging Hall of Famer Alfredo Salazar. A bigger August and September “saved” his overall numbers such that he finished the year with a .265/.330/.485 slash, and a whopping 1 WAR.

Still, industry insiders say McKinney’s value was much greater than his contract allows him, and that he’d have made considerably more in arbitration.

“I’m happy with the deal,” McKinney said back home in Michigan. “I wanted to get it over with.”

Other people happy with the deal are many fans of the team, who have grown more enamored of the kid as he’s undergone the weight of that off-putting first half by using a combination of wry and self-deprecating humor, as well as enacting an active display of his efforts to break the slump. At one point he had a pagan fan who was doing rituals for him, which he posted daily updates from. “It was kind of funny, you know?” McKinney said. “And she meant well. I’ll be sending her tickets to a game next year.”
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