The Nationals announced Monday that they’ve claimed first baseman Mike Ford off waivers from the Rays and opened a spot on the 40-man roster by transferring right-hander Joe Ross from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL. Tampa Bay had designated Ford for assignment over the weekend.
Ford, 29, had a big showing with the Yankees as a rookie in 2019 when he batted .259/.350/.559 with a dozen home runs in 163 plate appearances. He’s had a near-identical sample of 156 plate appearances since that time, however, and managed just a .134/.250/.276 batting line in the big leagues. The Yankees moved on from Ford back in June when they designated him for assignment, and while the Rays acquired him shortly thereafter, he never got called to the big leagues with Tampa Bay.
Instead, Ford has spent his time with the Rays rediscovering his swing in Triple-A Durham. He’d gone just 2-for-24 with eight strikeouts in 29 plate appearances with the Yankees’ top minor league affiliate this year, but Ford righted the ship (to an extent) with a .243/.346/.529 batting line in 162 Triple-A plate appearances in the Rays organization.
Ford will now join a Nationals club that went through a broad-reaching sell off prior to the trade deadline — a housecleaning effort that could lead to him getting some opportunities down the stretch. He’s been optioned to Triple-A Rochester for the time being, but Ford has another five years of club control remaining so they could take a look at him as a longer-term option at first base (or, if it comes to the National League, designated hitter). Josh Bell has been Washington’s primary first baseman this season but recently made an outfield appearance, which could allow the Nats a path to getting a look at both players at the plate.
As for Ross, the move to the 60-day IL comes as little surprise. The Nats recently announced that the righty was found to have an ulnar collateral ligament injury earlier this month, but he won’t require surgical repair. Still, given the nature of his injury and the remaining time on the calendar, it never looked likely that he’d make it back to the mound in 2021.
The next Nick Johnson?
If he was, he would be injured already.
Not even. Johnson had 76 homers and was hitting career .272 by Ford’s current age.
No Nick Johnson was a obp machine
the next Edsel
Underrated comment.. nice work
yessss
No carfax needed to show that this used Ford is unreliable
Ford stinks!
Ford was undrafted and developed into a nice quad A player. He was taken in the Rule 5 and returned. Circumstances finally gave him a shot with the Yankees in 2019 and he had well-timed hot steak. Good for him. He’ll always have that. He remains, however, a AAAA player. Mike Tauchman had a similar streak. Both will probably get multiple shots with teams because of those hot steaks. Andrew Velazquez, it’s your turn to capitalize on a hot streak. He’ll be bounced around too.
This is such a straight up insightful & brutally honest take, man. Completely agree though.
Who could blame the Nats for taking a shot, anyway?
skedeebs, no reason not to. Maybe he even has another hot streak to offer. I’m jaded though. I’ve watched too much baseball over the decades, so I know who Mike Ford is. At least in my mind!
Difference is Velazquez is a net positive defender who can play 4 – 6 positions. He’ll never be a great hitter, but in another era he would have carved out a 10 year MLB career as a utility player.
Brickhaus, he is. I admit, the thoughts of a games with Urshela at 3B, Velazquez at SS, DJLM at 2B and Rizzo at 1B is appealing. That’s as tight of a defensive infield as you’ll find. Velazquez is the type of player that when he shows up on the transaction wire in January causes fans to write “Cashman is dumpster diving.” Cashman meanwhile is simply preparing for DEFCON 2, when everything seems near nuclear, and half the team is on the Covid IL, my starting SS and 3B’man are injured, and my normal backup infielder also has to cover in the OF. No problem. This scenario kept me awake last January, so I signed a slick-fielding SS that I hope never gets to bat because that means lots has gone wrong, but I got him just in case. Probably the most underrated aspect of being a GM. Planning for disaster. Maybe they had some left over pixie dust, whatever they sprinkled on Gio Urshela to make his bat come alive. That’d be great. Just not counting on it, but I am enjoying the story.
That’s another Good Take.
There seems to be a inverse to this as well. I first noticed it in ’17. It’s the “everything went right!” plan. Or lack thereof.
Remember Cash was pretty smooth with his pickups. He was *ready* to augment his club. The Twins – as another example – were not. They wound up kind of bumbling about at the deadline.
Which reminds me of the ’21 Reds & red sox to be honest. It didn’t look like those front offices were prepared for success.
The Red Sox had a lot of health and a lot of things go right the first half. I think you’re right. They didn’t expect to be quite this good and weren’t positioned to capitalize this year.
I could hot some hot steaks right about now.
Massive move! Nats NL East favorites now!
Which year?
Every year they have this absolute stud
This is how low the Nats go! Omg – from ‘19 WS Champs to here – good one Rizzo & Lerner. Fans are really happy – heading for the NL East cellar too. Will be returning to you in USPS my Turner jersey and no games – how to lose a original Nats fan.
Gray and ruiz will be immediate contributors. Garcia, Hernandez, and Keiboom can fill. Lane Thomas has looked good. With this stacked SS class the team should be able to compete in this bad division next year if they just get a little more pitching
Nats will be battling the Marlins for last. Rizzo sort of like Bogart ‘s line in Casablanca ( “we’ll always have Paris). Can say we’ll always have the 2019 season.
Btw. Ford can replace the soon to be bust ( like Michael A Taylor) Carter Kieboom At least Taylor could field
Also get Robles out of the starting line up and in a batting cage every day