A big part of the reason the Yankees missed the playoffs last year was all the injuries they had to deal with during the season.
A big part of their season this year is going to be how they bounce back from them, if they can bounce back at all. Most specifically, how four players, Hideki Matsui, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez, who all had surgery can recover from them.
A-Rod is the biggest bat and thus he is probably the biggest concern, also he is most recent in coming off surgery. He had surgery to repair a tear in his hip labrum which his doctor said should take six to nine weeks to recover plus the time it will take to rehab the injury.
The problem is that they did not fix the entire problem, and he is at risk of re-aggravating the injury. If he were to have a major setback, it’s possible the Yankees could lose him for the entire season. If that were to happen, the Yankees really do not have anybody to take his place. Cody Ransom is a short term replacement, but certainly no long term solution.
A-Rod is potentially a big problem, but Matsui could be an even bigger one. He’s had surgery in both knees over the past two seasons, and there are very few players who have long successful careers without two knees. If he can play 140 games this season, expect him to put up his old numbers, but 140 games may be a tall order. Even his manager is worried about him.
“I still get a little nervous,” Girardi said. “Last year, he didn’t play every day. He wasn’t asked to give 500, 600 at-bats. I think he’s real important.”
Girardi is nervous and that makes me nervous. They’ve already said that it isn’t likely that he’s going to be in the outfield much this season and the fact that he’s still not playing everyday in spring makes me feel like he’s not ready yet. Hopefully as the season progresses, he will get better and not worse.
With Matsui and A-Rod there is big potential for both players to take a step back, but the Yankees have the resources to replace a third baseman or a DH. Maybe they couldn’t get an equivalent, but they could certainly acquire a league average player at each position. One person who would be nearly impossible to replace is Jorge Posada.
Posada is returning from shoulder surgery and so far isn’t instilling confidence in everybody. He has yet to play behind the plate in a game and has already suffered a setback when he had to be taken out of the lineup for a few days.
Since that time, things seem to have been going OK and it shouldn’t be long before he does get behind the plate. It does seem that maybe he could play in at least 100 games, maybe more, but that is hardly a guarantee. Even if he does get behind the plate, if his arm cannot throw out base runners, he and the Yankees will be in trouble.
The only player returning from surgery that doesn’t have huge question marks surrounding him is Mariano Rivera. Rivera had surgery late last season even after a productive year. It was only minor surgery, if you can call shoulder surgery minor, so there no reason to expect him to have a setback.
This week he got back on the mound and threw 30 pitches and should get into games soon. This is the one place where there is no major cause for concern.
“We’re on the right track,” Rivera said after his bullpen session.
Rivera is one out of the four players that there is no major cause for concern with, but the Yankees are going to need at least three of the four to have big seasons in order for success in 2009.
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