The big news today is that Alex Rodriguez has a (partially) torn labrum in his hip, which caused the cyst that was found. If you don’t know this, you’ve been hanging out in a nuclear fallout shelter all day. The Yankees have announced that he is not—as of now—undergoing surgery to fix it and that they’ll try “rest and rehab”. Surgery, however, is inevitable so this is just an attempt to put it off until after the season is over.
This approach has mixed results, and the Yankees themselves recently were burned by doing this with Jorge Posada last season. Now, that was his shoulder but last year Mike Lowell and Chase Utley also had the same injury (minus the cyst!) and underwent the same surgery. Utley was able to play through it all season and nobody even had an idea that something was wrong until the procedure was announced, but Lowell had his season cut short in September when they were unable to put it off any longer. My personal preference is that A-Rod undergoes the procedure before the season, and returns by latest around the time of the All-Star Break. Missing the beginning of the season does suck, but it is Spring Training right now and you can take a look at internal options rather than trying to fill the position suitably through trade when other teams know how desperate you are.
And no, a combination of Cody Ransom and Angel Berroa is not acceptable for more than maybe two games.
In any case, bloggers and newspaper journalists everywhere are throwing their ideas around so I am going to jump on that train.
- Mark Grudzilanek is an interesting option, as he has a decent glove and bat and would be cheap. However, he is 39 and has a bad back that sidelines him pretty often. It’s entirely possible that he would be hurt for the whole time he is “filling in” for A-Rod.
- Xavier Nady was originally a third baseman coming out of college, and still played the position for a while in the minor leagues. It’s been a long time, and he doesn’t really have any experience at the position in the Major Leagues but it’s Spring Training and A-Rod is out so why not just have him playing there as much as possible from here on out. If he’s not completely terrible, he is a far better option there than Ransom/Berroa.
- Nick Swisher is a very versatile guy, maybe he can play some 3B as well? I’d prefer him in Right Field as he seems to be very good there by eye and by numbers like UZR. Nady is pretty average there, but Swisher is a bit better. Maybe a platoon/switch off situation between 3B/RF if both seem suitable would be possible. Pure speculation/best case scenario.
- There are some rumors that teams will be salary dumping once the season rolls around, which the Yankees could take advantage of but picking up another 3B for anything useful is something I don’t really agree with. If they could get Adrian Beltre for cheap, that would be amazing. He is makes a decent amount of money and could end up on the dump list and is a free agent at the end of the year, and is a simply fantastic defender. He is incredibly undervalued to the general public (and media), but not to the (current) management of the Mariners. This scenario falls under “pipe dream”.
All in all, I am very disappointed and upset about the inevitable absence of Alex Rodriguez from the Yankees lineup, but I do honestly think the team can weather this. They upgraded the team significantly this off season by signing CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira, and I am thanking everything around that they jumped in and signed Teix now. If the Yankees can find someone who is not an automatic out to plug in A-Rod’s place when he does miss time or needs a rest (I am thinking he can play 4 out of every 5 games or something similar, feasibly) then they’ll be in pretty good condition. I don’t know if they’ll be better than the Red Sox or the Rays but I feel like they’ll be in the fight.
