New York Yankees non-roster invitees part one – position players
By Ed Stein
Infielders
Mike Ford – The 26-year-old first baseman from Trenton, NJ has been in professional baseball since 2013. Last season was his first full one in AAA. With Scranton Wilkes-Barre he hit .253 in 357 at-bats. It seems highly unlikely given the options NYY has at first base that he makes it past the second week of spring training with the team.
Kyle Holder – Holder was selected in the first round of the 2015 draft by the Yankees (30th overall). Curiously, he is not listed as one of the team’s top-30 prospects. Toward the middle of 2017, Holder started to make a name for himself at Class A Tampa, where wound up hitting .271.
His game is still a work in progress, but the skills are there for him to be a serviceable middle infielder at the big league level one day. The Yankees aren’t going to give up on a recent first-round pick so soon, but they do need to get a handle on his progress. There is also a good chance he’ll be playing to impress other teams this spring for trade purposes.
Gio Urshela – A shortstop/third baseman by trade, Urshela is the definition of a Quad-A player. He’s good enough to stand out a bit in AAA but hasn’t had what it takes to stick around in the majors. Urshela spent parts of 2015 and 2017 with the Cleveland Indians, as well as 19 games with the Toronto Blue Jays last year. It’s easy to see him as a depth player at Scranton this year.
The fact that these three were assigned uniform numbers between 70 – 95 speaks volumes about their chances this spring.