It’s been nearly 20 years since the Yankees had a player who looks as commanding at the plate as the man hitting in the most productive spot in the line-up. And I’m not talking about A-Rod or Jeter.

I’m talking about Hideki Matsui.

In his third year in Major League Baseball, Matsui, one of the greatest hitters Japan ever saw during his ten years and three MVPs in the Japanese League, is about to erupt. If you’ve watched him, you’ve seen it coming for two years.

“It” is an MVP season, a year flowing with RBIs and extra-base hits, a year in which his batting average doesn’t just break .300 but blows past it.

I’m calling it now, and you’re welcome to check back in at season’s end to see if I got it right, because I’m as confident about this call as any I’ve ever made.

So much has been made of A-Rod in pinstripes since he joined the Evil Empire last year that Matsui has gone about his work in relative anonymity. It’s only natural. He’s a foreigner on a team with more stars than the Milky Way, a man who speaks little, and then through an interpreter, a quiet man by nature who’s never been seen making a fool — or a spectacle — of himself around town.

But this year, the recognition factor is going to change, and by the end of the season, fans won’t be talking anymore about how A-Rod is the best hitter in pinstripes. A-Rod, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t getting better; Matsui is.

He’s settled in so surely in the Bronx, that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t born a Yankee. No one, including Derek Jeter, looks better in pinstripes than Matsui. And while there is no question that Jeter is the heart of the team, Matsui has become as vital a cog as there is in the Yankee machine.

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Matsui will probably hit clean-up this year, and he should. He may not hit as many home runs as Gary Sheffield, but he went from 16 to 31 in his first two years and he’ll do better this year. With Womack, Jeter and A-Rod hitting ahead of him, Matsui should drive in 130 runs or more. He’ll be in the top five in batting average — Ichiro remains the man no one will beat for average — and somewhere in that neighborhood in on-base percentage.

That’s not really a guess. All you have to do is look at the progression in his numbers in his first two years.

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