The Yankees are sifting through Triple A for a Roy Hobbs: Next up, Billy McKinney

It's been a while since Billy McKinney plucked our heartstrings of hope. To be precise, 2016.

That year, he appeared as an extra particle in the mammoth Aroldis-for-Gleyber deal with the Cubs. He'd been a first-round pick for Oakland and future Hall of Famer (a la Clint Frazier) whose rise had been delayed by injuries. 

The following season, in Trenton and Scranton, McKinney hit .277 with 16 HRs. Then he hit the Yankees' perpetual logjam of contractual mediocrity, which persists to this day. With a forever-opened tap of salary-dump veterans, the Yankees simply don't give youngsters much of a chance. It was that way in 2017. It's that way now. Long-term MLB tryouts are for small markets. 

In 2018, McKinney was shipped to Toronto (along with Brandon Drury, who has since rebuilt his career) for J.A. Happ, a deal that kept intact Brian Cashman's string of pitching disappointments. McKinney bounced from Toronto to Milwaukee to the Dodgers to Texas and back to Oakland, before re-signing last year with the Yankees and returning to Scranton, where, by now, he can presumably run for city council.  

This season, he started slowly, then heated up, as the Yankee mother ship  started going through outfielders like supermodels doing Ozempic. He's hitting .274 with nine HRs. He's a lefty hitter, a commodity the Death Barge desperately needs, and he's contractually expendable. They can toss him into the fire and see what happens. 

This season, they have done the same with Franchy Cordero (hitting .148), Jake Bauers (.227) and Willie Calhoun (.234). Each showed pop... for a while, then settled back into previous grooves. The Yankees seek another Matt Carpenter, who last year rose from from the recycling bin to hit .305 with 15 HRs, but who then looked overmatched in the post-season and who this year is hitting .183 for San Diego. (The Yankees recently released 35-year-old Kole Calhoun from Scranton, after he hit .281 in 23 games.) 

Basically, they're scouring the dental clinic dumpster for gold fillings.

Sadly, one guy who won't get a call is Estevan Florial, the speedy, 25-year-old CF who is hitting .317 with 12 HRs and 11 SBs at Scranton. They have no more options on Florial, so if they bring him up, they can't send him down. Thus, he's trapped in limbo, at least until the Aug. 1 trade deadline.

It's always something, right? There's always a reason why the kid isn't ready. (Unless, of course, he comes with massive hype, like Aaron Judge or Anthony Volpe, and that comes with its own set of strings, eh?) And it usually comes down to upper management maintaining leverage. 

So... here comes McKinney, who will likely spell Anthony Rizzo at 1B in today's double-header. If he hits a HR or two, he could get another chance against Boston. And then, who knows? Maybe the guy somehow uncovered the secret of hitting - maybe he finally figured out the curve ball that was eluding him - and maybe after all this time, he's Roy Hobbs from the 1984 movie "The Natural."  

Well, that's the hope, eh? Okay, juju gods, he's all yours...