With an already injury riddled first baseman, the Yankees were hit by a big setback as the Yankees’ future 1B torn the labrum of his right shoulder. Bird will undergo season ending surgery. A major setback as current first baseman Mark Teixeira missed substantial parts of the last few seasons due to injuries as well.
Bird is regarded as the Yankees’ future first baseman, but was expected to spend time at AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2016. Tex’ contract will expire af the end of the 2016 season, so Bird must be healthy by the start of the 2017 Spring Training.
According to the Yankees, the injury is reoccurring injury that Bird sustained in May. He spent a month on the DL of the Trenton Thunder, the Yankees’ AA franchise.
After the 2016 season, Bird informed the Yankees that he was bothered by the shoulder again. The Yankees’ team physicians could not discover any deterioration of the labrum.
But after Bird started practicing again in preparation of the season, the pain returned.
Now Bird is out for the season, Brian Cashman stated that he sees Dustin Ackley as the backup first baseman. Cashman does not want to experiment with a first baseman like he did last year with A-Rod.
It is clear that the Yankees are down an important insurance piece in Bird. Even though the club tries to rejuvenate, it still has some aging players and with them a bigger chance on injuries.
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