MacKinnon hired by Kansas City Royals
Kyle MacKinnon (Cheltenham, Ont.) has been hired by the Kansas City Royals.
January 25, 2024
By Kevin Glew
Canadian Baseball Network
Former Ontario Blue Jays coach Kyle MacKinnon has been hired by the Kansas City Royals to serve as assistant hitting coach for their class-A Columbia Fireflies.
The Royals unveiled their list of 2024 minor league coaches on Wednesday.
MacKinnon (Cheltenham, Ont.) landed the gig after working for a season as an apprentice coach in the Houston Astros organization.
Prior to joining the professional coaching ranks, MacKinnon coached for six seasons at Macpherson College, where he began as a hitting coach 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, 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.