MacKinnon joins D-Backs as minor league hitting coach

Former Brooks Bombers coach Kyle MacKinnon is joining the Arizona Diamondbacks’ development staff as a minor league hitting coach. Photo: Brooks Bombers/Twitter

January 16, 2023

By Kevin Glew

Canadian Baseball Network

Canadian Kyle MacKinnon has left his head coaching position at Macpherson College to join the Arizona Diamondbacks’ developmental staff as a minor league hitting coach.

MacKinnon (Cheltenham, Ont.) shared the news on Twitter on Sunday.

“Bittersweet moment for my family and I to announce I have joined the Arizona Diamondbacks MILB Development Staff as Hitting Coach for the 2023 season. I’m excited to get going and help develop the next generation of DBacks,” wrote MacKinnon.

“However, I’m moving on from the only home I’ve known in the U.S. A program that is ready to continue to build and take the next steps needed to compete on the national stage. Macpherson will always have a place in my heart.”

MacKinnon became a hitting coach with Macpherson in 2016 and served as an associate head coach and hitting coach before becoming the head coach of the program in 2021.

MacKinnon is also a former Brampton Royals and Ontario Blue Jays coach, who cut his teeth catching for the Durham Lords for three seasons, helping to lead them to two conference titles and a pair of National Championship final four berths.

During his seven years with the Ontario Blue Jays, MacKinnon spent time as an assistant coach, the hitting coach and as head coach of the 16U team.

MacKinnon’s extensive baseball resume also includes a tenure as head coach at George Brown College from 2012 to 2014, in which he led the Huskies to their first postseason tourney, as well as a stretch as GM and manager of the Intercounty Baseball League’s Burlington Bandits.

He also spent summers working with some of the elite summer college programs in the U.S. and Canada, including the Medicine Hat Mavericks (2016), Fort McMurray Giants (2017) and Brooks Bombers (2018-19), of the Western Canadian Baseball League.