The Yankees have been giving Greg Bird numerous opportunities to prove himself at first base, but now it may be time to give up.
At one point Greg Bird was one of the most talked about Yankees prospect. A big lefty first man with great power, someone to take over when Mark Teixeira retired. While we saw glimpses of his potential in 2015, it isn’t enough to sway us away from what has transpired since then.
Here are two reasons why it is time to give up on Greg Bird:
1. Can’t stay on the field
Greg Bird hasn’t been able to fully showcase his skills because he can’t find a way to stay healthy. The man is pretty much made of glass and is always breaking at the worst possible time. Here is a quick look at his injury history; 2016: Out for the season with surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder, 2017: Missed 114 games as a result of surgery to remove an extra bone in his right foot( yes you read that right), 2018: Missed 80 games with more surgery on that same right foot(bone spur), and 2019: placed on the IL on 4/16 with a left plantar fascia tear, likely out for a over a month.
The only thing keeping Bird from playing from his own body, but this is happening every year and each year it opens the door for another player to step up. If it was maybe just one or two injuries then the fans wouldn’t give up, but this is trending towards Ellsbury levels and that speaks for itself.
2. Isn’t producing when healthy
There have been some rare times where Bird has been healthy, most notably he played in a career-high 82 games last year. In those 82 games in 2018, Bird slashed a terrible .199/.286/.386 while hitting only 11 homers and driving in 38 runs. This year Bird got off to an even worse start. In 10 games, Bird was slashing .171/.293/.257 with only one home run and one run batted in (At the time Bird went on the IL, Chris Davis had more RBI’s than him).
In almost every single game this year Bird seemed overmatched by even low 90’s fastballs. Paul O’Neil even pointed out that everything was off during one of the games. Finally, Luke Voit is looking more and more like the real deal each day, if and when Bird comes back he won’t be the starter as Voit has claimed that spot. It’s time to let the Bird fly away and see if he can show some of that potential.