Greg Bird is just 25 years old, so the fact he’s yet to play a full season in the majors isn’t alarming on its own. The thing is, though, Bird has already seen his 2018 campaign shortened by maybe two months due to surgery to remove a bone spur from his ankle, and it’s his third surgery in three years.
Greg Bird’s ankle injury an early blow to the Yankees
Tuesday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at how the Yankees will handle life without their first baseman.
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Injuries, and ones requiring surgery, are the reason Bird is 25 and without a full season in the majors under his belt. As Pinstripe Alley notes, it’s not quite time to say the young first baseman is the next Nick Johnson, but all of these injuries are still alarming just the same.
The timing is awful for Bird, who hit well back in 2015, missed 2016, and came back late in 2017 in time to thrive in the postseason, where he batted .244/.426/.512 with three homers in 12 games. That gave the world an indication of what he was capable of when he was feeling good, and adding that to the Yankees’ regular-season lineup in addition to Giancarlo Stanton was supposed to terrify the rest of the league.
The Yankees still have Stanton, but they’ll be without Bird for six-to-eight weeks. In the meantime, they do have alternatives, at least: late-spring signing Neil Walker has played a little first base in the past, and Tyler Austin has now made the team to take Bird’s roster spot and the occasional game at first as well.
Still, with the Red Sox, winner of the AL East the last two seasons, facing a number of rotation injuries to begin 2018, the Yankees were in a position to take advantage early on. They might still be, but they’ll have take advantage without Bird around to help.
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