Blue Jays and Yankees ‘have agreement’ for J.A. Happ trade

Jon Morosi (and Joel Sherman, Jon Heyman and almost everyone else) is saying that the Blue Jays and Yankees have reached agreement to trade J.A. Happ to New York. I’m not sure I’m a fan of this new idea of trading within the division.

They aren’t sure who is coming back to the Jays, but it looks like Brandon Drury is one of two players coming to Toronto.

Drury will be 26 in August. Baseball prospectus had him as the 72 best prospect in baseball before the 2016 season, but he’s not been able to put it all together in the majors yet. This season he is hitting .294/.403/.447 in Triple A Trenton, but he didn’t show well in 57 at bats with the Yankees, hitting .176/.263/.275.

It does look like he is willing to take a walk, which would be a strange thing for a Jays infielder. He’s played mostly third in the minors, with some time at second and a few games at short.

We will update when the deal is official and we know who is coming to the Jays.

Update (I shouldn’t have hit post):

It looks like Billy McKinney is coming along with Drury. McKinney is a LHB, plays outfield and was drafted in the first round of the 2013 draft, 24th overall. He’s played mostly RF in the minors. Baseball Prospectus had him the 74th best prospect in baseball before the 2016 season. Career he has a .272/.350/.429 batting line in the minors in 596 games. He’s hitting .230/.294/.502 with 13 home runs in AAA.

He’ll be 24 in August (birthday is 2 days after Drury’s). At Minor League Ball, they had him the Yankees 12th top prospect before the season. Sickels wrote:

12) Billy McKinney, OF, Grade B-: Age 23, certainly a well-known prospect at this point having been involved in two major trades; hit .250/.339/.431 in 232 at-bats in Double-A then .306/.336/.541 in 209 at-bats in Triple-A; in a certain sense nothing has changed, still combines average overall tools with hustle and good game feel; in another sense I really don’t know what to make of him at this point; hits extremely well at times but prone to stretches of mediocre performance; at this point I’m not sure who the real McKinney is; will just slap a B- on there and call it good for now. ETA 2018.

I’m not sure what his addition means for Anthony Alford or Dalton Pompey. Not that it is worth anything, but I liked him in OOTP Baseball.