SEATTLE, WA – AUGUST 26: Mike Ford #36 of the New York Yankees high-fives Austin Romine #28 after hitting a two-run home run in the second inning against the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park on August 26, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images)
Buckle up for the next great New York Yankees star, Mike Ford.
New York Yankees fans had better not sleep on Mike Ford in 2020.
He only appeared in 50 MLB games last season and will begin the new campaign outside the starting lineup, but it’s time to buy proper Ford stock before prices soar.
You won’t NEVER hear a word of slander from me about Mike Tauchman. There are plenty of reasons to expect Clarke Schmidt to have his say in The Bronx on the sooner side of things. But in what will one day be seen as the historic annals of the 2020 New York Yankees, there is one name not quite getting his due at the moment that is about to make a whole lot of prognosticators spit up coffee all over their stacks of illegible hand-written notes.
New York Yankees 2020 breakout candidate: Mike Ford
His name is Mike Ford, and he remembers what you said about him.
If you want a pound-for-pound power bat, this is your guy. He posted an OPS over 1.000 in Triple-A in 2019, and in just 50 games and 163 plate appearances in the Show, the lefty first baseman/DH tossed up a dazzling .909 OPS. His ability to pull the ball and keep it in the air makes him purpose-built for the particularly porch-tastic dimensions of Yankee Stadium.
(Oh, he also pitched two innings. That he only allowed five earned runs is yet another feather in his cap.)
The capper for Ford? His batting average on balls in play was a head-spinningly low .243, suggesting that he’s a candidate to progress to the mean over a larger sample sign. This man won’t steal reps from a healthy Luke Voit at first base, nor should he, but given that this Yankee team has been wracked by the injury bug up and down the roster at a truly obscene rate, the reps are going to be there for this man.
And if 2019 was anything but a feverish hallucination, the very best version of Ford in pinstripes has yet to be seen.