Feets, Don’t Fail Me Now
Ever since the Yankees stocked their system with top-ranked talent, the question has always been: Which of these prospects will work out and which will not? The odds have told us all along that some of these talented players would not live up to expectations.
When Sanchez was stuck in Double-A, it looked like he would be one such player. When Judge endured epic struggles two years ago, he looked like a bust; the same could be said of Severino.
But now we are getting the real answers. Both Clint Frazier and, more importantly, Greg Bird are starting to slip away. That does not mean these men are done as players by any stretch. The warning signs, however, are starting to get a lot bigger.
I used to think of Clint as the greater Slade Heathcott, a man who could play with savagery but was big enough to take the pounding. Now he’s just starting to look like the regular Heathcott, minus the personal demons. But it is way too early to make any judgments on Frazier.
Once is An Accident, Twice is a Pattern
Bird, however, might be entering the end. We’ve seen it before, haven’t we? There are just some players who start their careers getting hurt and never stop. Is Bird that guy? Is he just too brittle for baseball?
There certainly are players who started their careers dealing with nagging injuries who then went on to have healthy, long-term runs. But that is not the norm. Usually, when a player has recurring injuries in a vital area—back, feet, shoulders for pitchers—he is on a downward path that there is no returning from.
Ask Greg Odom. Or Larry Bird. And of course Yankees fans remember the great Don Mattingly. At least those last two had their glory years before their chronic injuries; the Gregs have not been as lucky. And we know what happened to Greg number one.
Bird, however, still has a chance. He has played and played well. That, along with his salary as well as depth at the position for no additional cost, makes him worth waiting on…for now.
And now is all we are concerned about here. Will he contribute this season? I say yes.
My guess is that Bird comes back by the All-Star break and again plays well. But the chance that he makes it to, or better yet through, the playoffs seems unlikely. We haven’t seen a stretch of quality play longer than six weeks from Bird in years now. Why would that suddenly change?
There is of course the possibility that this surgery makes a final repair and Bird’s ankle heals permanently. This is, however, becoming a less and less likely scenario.
Which brings us to our last but not least interesting and impactful question heading into the new season.