Interesting Matty, and thanks for the insight! With all due respect, Bird does have an injury history. Given the inside knowledge you have, most Yankee fans have to be stoked with Stanton. Is there a concern, with the salary taken on by Stanton, that other areas of team weakness will be patched rather than repaired?

Bird certainly does have a history there, yet when one probes the latest injury and the medical facts of it, there is cause for great optimism.

Below is an interesting article that appeared on the subject many months ago, when he was first injured; it draws a worthwhile comparison to two other NYC sports stalwarts, namely Phil Simms and Patrick Ewing. It is also interesting to note that weeks were lost while the situation remained undiagnosed. Pasting the article, forgive the length:

"Simms and Ewing began their careers beset by injuries and were tagged as prone to being hurt. Bill Parcells actually benched Simms for Scott Brunner at one point. Ewing’s first Knicks coach, Hubie Brown, said his center needed to improve his “attendance.” Of course after injuries to knee, shoulder, thumb, etc., wrecked the first five years of his career, Simms’ sturdiness was part of the formula that helped the Giants be persistent contenders and win their first Super Bowl.Ewing missed 51 games during his first two seasons, mainly because of knee issues, then never played fewer than 78 until he was 35, becoming one of the 50 greatest players ever and helping the Knicks to serial contention.

In our current enlightened times we, well, are questioning Bird’s durability and even his desire to play. And it may be that Bird breaks easily and heals slowly and because of that — like Johnson — will never fully honor his talent. But in 2015, he was Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge before Sanchez and Judge broke out. He was arguably the best hitter in the Grapefruit League this year, and if you would have said on, say, March 24, the Yankees must trade Bird or Judge, based on Judge’s 2016 major league failures, it would have been him.

Bird hardly has played the last two seasons and perhaps that will be crippling. But he is seven months younger than the rookie Judge. Bird hit third on Opening Day, Judge eighth. The world changes quickly, but it shouldn’t be so quick as to give up on Bird or label him soft or a malingerer. Anyone who has been around Bird a lot reports he loves to play baseball, particularly hit. Why would he want to not be doing this?

“You aren’t going to let words or thoughts of others derail what you believe, and that is what I believe about Greg Bird,” Simms, a huge baseball fan, said by phone. “And, if it does, then you were not going to be what we thought you were going to be anyway.”

Bird had surgery this week to remove the os trigonum bone from his right ankle. The Yankees said they expect him to miss six weeks, but as I wrote Wednesday, Geovany Soto and Joey Gallo both had the same surgery and were playing within three weeks. General manager Brian Cashman said Bird’s bone removal, though, was larger than ordinary. But Cashman also has said he will not make any move between now and July 31 that blocks Bird long-term. Bird is just 24. When Simms was 24 he was a rookie about to endure a series of injuries. When Ewing was 24 he was amid an injury-riddled second season. Durability and greatness were still out there for Simms and Ewing. Bird is young enough and talented enough to receive patience about what is out there for him."

Of course, we saw Bird come back this season, and hit the decisive home run in a 0-0 ALDS elimination game.

Pivoting to your question about team weaknesses that need to be addressed, a big variable will be whether Ellsbury's contract can be offloaded. Even then, the farm system is deep enough to use some resources there toward a starter. To be honest I have not heard any whispers of specific next moves— though the team is not done. Third base is one key area and being under the threshold, they will be in a position to pursue a certain Mr. Machado, should they deem him the answer at the hot corner.

I am just grateful I was lucky enough, thanks to some friends, to grab a Stanton RC yesterday before the news broke ;) !

Matty,

Great information!

Congrats on the Stanton rookie, and what should be a fun season in the Bronx!

Last year the Yankees were one win away from the World Series.

Add Stanton, if he stays healthy, and some of those 2-1 losses to Houston disappear.

They will now be favorites to win the pennant.

They should re-sign Sabathia as well.

Nobody has talked about how the Yanks apparently don't want to be in on the Harper craziness that's coming after this season. Stanton's .268 career avg doesn't scare anyone?

I Love Underdogs
 

I really do not mean to disparage anyone, but have an alternative view of competition that is independent of the size of a team's wallet and more power to the Yankees in their acquisition of Stanton. May they hit 300 home runs this year and win 130 games.

However I love underdogs. Consider 2008 when the value of the Yankees in terms of payroll was roughly $286,000,000. In the same year the value of the Red Sox' payroll was roughly $160,000,000. They finished second and third in their division. And who won the division and made it to the World Series?

Joe Maddon and the boys from the "Trop", whose aggregate value in 2008 was $65,000,000, which was less than the salary of three Yankees that year (ARod, Giambi and Jeter).

With a salary less than 25% of the pinstripers they prevailed. The obstacles facing small market teams over an 162 game season are nearly insurmountable. The inability to retain their young "stars" is a virtual certainty. The folks in Tampa Bay, Milwaukee and Houston for that matter need dictionaries to look up the word "dynasty". It doesn't happen very often to be sure, but to realize that they can win even one pennant is an accomplishment far greater than another pennant added by a big market team from New York, Los Angeles, Boston or Chicago.

I grew up in New York in the days of Willie, Mickey and the Duke. My bias was probably influenced by the "underdog" Giants in 1954 when they swept the 111 win Indians in the World Series. Between 1947 and 1963 only 4 teams other than the Dodgers or the Yankees won the World Series. Milwaukee winning in '57 and Pittsburgh winning in '60 was good for baseball I maintain.

The playing fields were tilted then favoring big market teams and they still are and I can accept that. But give me an underdog that is making a run in the middle of the season and that's my team.;)

There's no guarantee the Yankees would get Harper and they're paying Stanton less money than they would have paid Harper. How can you say the Yankees have a bad history of big money signings and then bring up Harper? If the Yankees didn't get Stanton when they could, and for basically nothing, they'd be rolling the dice on Harper. Everyone thought the Yankees were Ohtani favorites and they didn't even get a meeting.

I've watched him for 8 years. This past year was incredible, and he may have figured it out, but I've always thought he was severely overrated nationally. As I mentioned before, most people only see his highlights on sportscenter because they aren't watching Marlins games. He is the king of the one-run homerun. You can blame his teammates for not getting on base if you want, but I've seen him strikeout with men on base one too many times to buy into that argument. Having have said all that, it will be fun watching him in a lineup with Judge and Sanchez, and I wish him luck. For years before I had the Marlins, I rooted for the Yankees because all their games were broadcast in Miami. I'm just telling you guys my view of Stanton from a guy who has watched hundreds of his games.

As a Boston fan, I am quite fine with both of these facts.

I guess 243m is basically nothing for a guy that only hits home runs

Hooray for the Bronx Bombers. Once again they strike for the jugular of who might become available that could help them. After all, they did contemplate the liabilities of one George Herman Ruth. Guess the chap was tough to manage and control, erratic, but Ed Barrow had converted him to an outfielder, and he managed to break the major league single season home run record. They went out on a limb, and took a chance the limb wouldn't break. Guess Red Sox owner Harry Frazee needed a lot of dough to cover some shows that went bust, anyway.

Oh, ya heard this one?

Not surprised. But just sayin' --- sometimes taking a chance goes even better than what you figure.

Anyway, I'm sure the Yanks' medical team will see what they can do to keep him healthy, wealthy, and wise. ---Brian Powell

Not sure how this is at all "good for baseball". However, kudos to the Yanks ownership for taking a big step towards going deeper and deeper into the post season. I guess more than anything I'm jealous of New Yorkers because they have ownership that seems to give a damn about winning.

+1...I hear you Pete...Yankees won't win 90 games next year...

Amen to that.

David Glass has the dollars to pay players, but in KC we fear a return to 2000 - 2013.

The owner has to want to win.

More important than just the .268 career avg, is his .261 inter-league avg. He has a tOPS+ of 77 in inter-league. tOPS+ measures a players OPS for any given split compared to that player's overall average. 100 is the baseline, anything below that shows that he is below average in that split. So he drops below average when playing in the AL, yet he chose to go to the AL.

Based on his stats, and the teams pursuing him, I believe he would have been better served going to the Giants. He has a tOPS+ of 125 at ATT Park over his career. In 2017 it was his best park with a tOPS+ of 387.

Why would he leave Miami to go to another basement team? The Giants aren't going to be good again for a long time, maybe long enough that Stanton misses his entire prime.

I think you're forgetting that this was a trade and not a signing. When I said they gave up basically nothing I was talking about the players they traded.

this may have single handedly busted Judge's Sophomore Slump before it could even begin.