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New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira is headed back to the disabled list with the same injury to his wrist. Is it time for him to shut it down for the year?

Mark Teixeira is going on DL. No surprise. Yankees bringing back RHP Adam Warren. Heard OF Zoilo Almonte could be added too.

— Sweeny Murti (@YankeesWFAN) June 18, 2013

After returning from the disabled list, Teixeira played in 15 games, batting .151 with three home runs and 12 RBI.

With everything that’s gone on with Teixeira this year, is it time for the New York Yankees to shut him down for season-ending surgery and get him ready for 2014?

Background

Teixeira originally hurt his wrist while taking batting practice for Team USA in preparation for the World Baseball Classic.

It was a freak thing that happened with nobody to blame.

What made it nice for the Yankees was the fact that the WBC payed Teixeira’s salary ($7.38 million) while he was out.

Since the Yankees brought him off the DL, they’re now on the hook for the remainder of his season’s contract.

Why Surgery is the Best Thing

Surgery is the route the Yankees and Teixeira need to go.

If he just stays on the disabled list until he feels ready to go, the same thing is going to happen. He’ll play on it for a few weeks and then it will tweak again.

Then what?

Surgery would be the next course of action.

The Yankees have been doing fine with Teixeira out of the lineup. With Teixeira out of the lineup, the Yankees are 32-23. With him in the lineup, they were 6-8, including losing their last five games.

Injuries are nothing new for the Yankees this year, as they’ve dealt with a whole slew of them.

From Derek Jeter to Alex Rodriguez to Curtis Granderson to Kevin Youkilis, the Yankees are literally the walking wounded.

But that hasn’t stopped them from being seven games above .500 and only three games back in the AL East.

Moves the Yankees Can Make

While New York was counting on Teixeira to be in the lineup at this point (and he could still return), they can still make moves to help the team.

They can make a trade for multiple first basemen who are free agents after this season. Paul Konerko (the White Sox owe him), Kendrys Morales and Michael Morse could all be had for a decent price.

All three bring power and wouldn’t be in the way of Teixeira coming back next year.

They could also move Youkilis to first and trade for someone like Michael Young.

What the Yankees can’t afford is for Teixeira to do more damage to his wrist by playing. Doing so could risk part of the 2014 season if he isn’t careful.

There are options on the table. The Yankees just have to save their first baseman from himself and do what’s in the best interest of the team. After all, he’s still got three years and $67.5 million left on his contract.

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Mark Teixeira can add another hurdle to his difficult 2013 season. It appears that the New York Yankees slugger may be forced out of the lineup with a wrist injury. 

Bill Baer of NBC’s Hardball Talk reports that Teixeira was pulled from the Yankees in the Saturday night game against the Los Angeles Angels. 

As Meredith Marakovits of YES network tweets, manager Joe Girardi said that Teixeira’s swing has been impacted by a wrist injury. 

According to WFAN reporter Sweeny Murti, Teixeira will see a doctor on Sunday about his aggravated wrist.

Teixeira’s latest injury news is disheartening for fans hoping that he would get back on track. The first baseman has struggled with injuries all season, only playing in 15 games of 53 since returning on May 31 from a partially torn tendon sheath in the same wrist that is forcing him to miss time once again.

He hasn’t been terribly effective since his return. The two-time All-Star is hitting just .157 on the season with three home runs and 12 RBI. This is a stark contrast from the .251/24/84 line that he posted last season.  

Teixeira was replaced in the game by David Adams at first. The 26-year-old is hitting just .216 with two home runs and seven RBI in 74 at-bats on the season. 

The Yankees could desperately use a shot in the arm offensively. New York is just 21st in MLB in slugging percentage at .385 and 19th in runs with just 262 so far. Brett Gardner leads all Yankees batters in average at .283. 

The Yankees are now in third place in the AL East thanks in large part to a pitching staff that sports a team ERA of 3.65. Just 3.5 games behind the division-leading Boston Red Sox, the team may have to find more production without Teixeira in the lineup again. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

New York Yankees first baseman Mark Teixeira became the latest in a long line of fallen Bronx Bomber stars when he injured the tendon sheath of his right wrist when swinging off of a tee during World Baseball Classic workouts.

What originally was diagnosed as an 8-10 week absence could turn out to be much more. On Sunday, it was revealed that Teixeira could need surgery, putting his entire 2013 season in jeopardy.

While Yankees general manager Brian Cashman continues an attempt to move the team payroll under $189 million for 2014, Teixeira’s contract has been seen as an issue, but not in the same vein as Alex Rodriguez.

While there are options to replace him in the short term, the future has to become a major concern for Yankee decision makers. If health and production continue to dissolve from Teixeira, the franchise and fan base could start to consider his deal another unworkable albatross. 

Amazingly, Teixeira was one of the most ideal free agents in baseball history just over four years ago. Sports Illustrated painted his free agency as a gift to the organization smart enough to write the check. At $180 million, the New York Yankees—urged by Cashman pleading with ownership to extend payroll for this particular deal—wrote the check for the switch-hitting, polished first baseman.

At the time of the signing, it was hard to find a hole in Tex’s game. He was a professional on and off the field, affable, consistent, the best defensive first baseman in the sport and maybe most importantly, durable. Eight-year contracts are risky for any free agent, but Teixeira has averaged 151 games per season since debuting in 2003. Durability and talent were the recipe for free-agent success stories.

Of course, Cashman also saw a player with unique production. Scott Boras is notorious for the binders he prepares for each client, highlighting achievements and projecting the rest of their career. In Teixeira’s write-up, he included the following: Only three first basemen in history have hit more than 30 homers and driven in more than 100 runs for five consecutive seasons by age 28—Jimmie Foxx, Albert Pujols and Teixeira.

If that wasn’t enough, he could have included a list of 28-year-old players with a .919 or better OPS in at least 3,900 plate appearances. In the history of baseball, there have only been 31 players to start a career with that kind of production. Tex was one of them.

While the contract hasn’t been “bad” for New York thus far, it’s trending in the wrong direction. After a great debut season in 2009 (.292/.383/.565, 344 TB, 2nd in AL MVP voting, World Series Championship), Teixeira has seen his play fall off considerably.

Over the last three seasons, Teixeira has seen his slash line slip to .252/.347/.484, home run numbers dip to a career-low 24, and games played slip to a career-low 123 last season. Considering the magnitude of the wrist injury suffered this month, he may fail to reach even close to that number in 2013.

While the defense continues to be spectacular at first base, no team would sign up to pay $90 million through 2016 for strictly a defensive stalwart. For the Yankees to achieve team success in the immediate future, Teixeira must hit well. Teixeira’s skill set—power, on-base skills, switch-hitter—belies the recent production. He was supposed to age well because his core skills weren’t reliant on speed and he didn’t play a demanding up-the-middle position.

At this point, the New York Yankees would limit payroll anyway possible. Moving Teixeira would be an option if there were suitors.

The acceptance of an eroding skill set is a moment every aging player must face. For Teixeira and the Yankees, it’s come a few years too soon.

Joe Giglio is a MLB Lead Writer covering the NL and AL East. Follow him on Twitter @JoeGiglioSports.

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Mark Teixeira‘s first World Baseball Classic is going to be over before it even starts.

That’s the latest from FOX Sports’ baseball insider Jon Morosi, who is reporting (via Twitter) that the New York Yankees slugger will be removed from the United States’ WBC roster due to an injury to his right forearm.

Yahoo! Sports MLB columnist Jeff Passan confirms that the slugger’s injury is a “strained forearm” and that he could miss up to 10 days:

As MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch noted on Twitter, the injury just sort of crept up on Teixeira, and did so Tuesday during batting practice in the cages:

Teixeira was slated to start at first base for Team USA, providing a big bat in the middle of Joe Torre’s lineup and hopefully giving the Americans a good chance to contend for the first time in the three-tournament existence of the WBC. 

However, he will be heading home early, and will now focus solely on getting ready for a return to the Yankees lineup that already is without Alex Rodriguez and Curtis Granderson, and lost Nick Swisher in free agency to the Cleveland Indians.

Tex had a down year in 2012, hitting just .251 while collecting 24 home runs and 84 RBI. However, he did win his fifth Gold Glove last season, and continues to be both a defensive force and offensive threat for one of the American League’s premier franchises.

It’s part of the reason Torre wanted Tex for Team USA.

As far as the approach to the rest of the WBC, Torre has a few options. He could move Joe Mauer to first base and start one of his other catchers (Jonathan Lucroy or J.P. Arencibia), or opt to use a utility player like Ben Zobrist in that role.

As Danny Knobler of CBS Sports reported, Teixeira will be replaced on the Team USA roster. There’s been no news regarding that name just yet, though:

While Teixeira’s return to the Yankees is probably more important to Joe Girardi and the rest of the organization, his exit from the Team USA lineup puts a big dent in their championship hopes.

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The infield shift is one of the most effective yet frustrating strategies used in sports. 

Originally used by Cleveland Indians Manager Lou Boudreau to halt Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams, the infield shift has given baseball fans fits.

It has done this because the infield shift is a self-licking ice cream cone, surviving only because of men’s pride. 

But perhaps New York Yankees slugger Mark Teixeira can unleash a trend to crush the Boudreau shift. 

During a fun, lighthearted interview with MLB.com writer Bryan Hoch last spring, Teixeira said he might try bunting a try to achieve this end.

From Hoch:

[Teixeira] did talk a lot last spring about wanting to bunt, saying he’d like to plant it in opponent’s minds to keep defenses more honest.

Of course Yankees’ fans know Teixeira’s tough talk did not translate to action in 2012. As explained by Hoch, Teixeira later he had “just been having some fun with the media. He said that he never intended to bunt, and doesn’t believe he’s bunted in a game since he was 11 years old.”

Teixeira elaborated:

I tried [hitting the other way]. I tried it at the end of last year, I tried it at the beginning of this year. It didn’t work. Most really good players that are consistent, they don’t change things in the middle of their career. That just doesn’t really make lot of sense.

Now, I know Teixeira is a strapping player entering his 11th season of MLB service.

And I know it is tough to teach an old dog tricks sometimes.

But perhaps Teixeira should reconsider his stance. 

After all, how “in your face” would it be to watch Teixeira start planting baseballs down an unmanned third base line to crush the shift?

Kapow! Take that opposing manager. Fans watching Teixeira leg out a free of charge hit go ape crap. 

As one of many fans that have wanted to fire things at the television, when watching pull-hitters club gutless grounders into a great wall of leather, Teixeira bunting balls into open pasture may be a refreshing change of pace. 

Done enough times, it may plant that seed in the back of MLB manager’s minds not to order their third basemen to leave their post.

Perhaps Teixeira’s charge could inspire other pull-hitters like David Ortiz, Jose Bautista, Adrian Gonzalez and Josh Hamilton to give bunting a shot.

Of course many baseball fans may read this and say, “Not a shot in hell.”

But how many times have fans walked out the ballpark, wondering what could have been if only one of these guys swallowed their pride and took what the defense gave them?

Put another way, how many fans have seen pull-hitters fall prey to this “gotcha” tactic and yell, “bunt the freaking baseball!”

It has happened many times throughout baseball history. And realistically, the “Boudreau Shift” will continue well into the future.

However, it would be nice to see an uptick in slugger’s willing to lay one down for the team (especially when struggling).

Perhaps Teixeira could be the one to shatter this status quo. 

Mongoose Morisette is a featured baseball writer for B/r. He is also the founder of the Basebook Baseball Social Network. 

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Mark Teixeira has his work cut out for him next season. The last thing he should want to do is put together yet another subpar campaign.

If he does, he stands to draw comparisons to his teammate, Alex Rodriguez—and, trust me, those aren’t going to be comparisons to Rodriguez’s glory days.

Teixeira has regressed every season since his first season in pinstripes. In 2009, he finished second in AL MVP voting by hitting 39 home runs, driving in 122 and hitting .292/.383/.565.

In 2010, his production slipped just a little. His 33 home runs and 108 RBI were impressive, but his line of .256/.365/.481 represented a vast decrease from 2009.

Then, in 2011, he upped his home runs back to 39 and his RBI total to 111, but his average dropped down to .248.

In just 123 games last season, Teixeira hit only 24 home runs with 84 RBI and a line of .251/.332/.475.

The numbers he put up in his first season with the team was exactly the type of production the New York Yankees expected when they signed him to that massive eight-year, $180 million contract.

Now, if he keeps putting up the numbers he has in the past two seasons, he’ll turn into the next obnoxiously overpaid former superstar on the roster.

The most notorious of those former stars, Rodriguez, is a shell of his former self at this point in his career.

The past two seasons have been extremely disappointing, as he’s hit a total of just 34 home runs and drove in 119. Those used to be numbers that he’d reach before the month of September of a single season.

Instead, Rodriguez has become no more than a complementary player and chronic headache for the Yankees and their fans.

The current differences between the two stars are their health and defensive capabilities.

Rodriguez hasn’t been healthy the past two seasons, while Teixiera only missed 39 games last season.

Teixeira is also a perennial Gold Glover at first base. Rodriguez, while a good defensive third baseman, doesn’t stay healthy enough to allow him to perform as well as he can in the field.

In the end, though, defense doesn’t matter in New York.

The Yankees need Teixeira to live up to his contract. They’ve become all too familiar with under-performing, highly paid stars and do not want to add another to the list.

If Teixeira doesn’t pick it up next season, though, they’ll be forced to. 

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It won’t be long now before the New York Yankees implement a new rule: Effective immediately, all players must wear bubble wrap under their pinstripes.

It’s been that kind of a season for the Bombers. Michael Pineda was the first major player to go down, and then went Brett Gardner, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, CC Sabathia (twice), Alex Rodriguez and Ivan Nova.

Am I missing some names? Yeah, probably. Honestly, you could pick a name out of a hat full of Yankees players, and odds are, that player has spent some time on the disabled list this season.

First baseman Mark Teixeira could be next. 

As Ian Begley of ESPNNewYork.com reported, Teixeira suffered a Grade 1 strain of his left calf in Monday night’s loss to the Toronto Blue Jays. Yankees manager Joe Girardi said after the game that Teixeira could be out as many as seven days, or maybe even as long as two weeks.

Teixeira said pretty much the same thing.

“I don’t know; It could be as little as a week,” said the 2009 AL MVP runner-up. “Or it could be two weeks, but I don’t really know.”

According to Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News, the prognosis hasn’t changed all that much a day after the fact:

Girardi said Teixeira will be out “Seven, eight or 15 days.”

— Mark Feinsand (@BloggingBombers) August 28, 2012

Or it could be three weeks. That’s how long Derek Jeter was out when he suffered a Grade 1 calf strain in 2011. It’s possible that Teixeira may not be back until the postseason is looming just overhead.

Good luck getting anyone in the Yankees clubhouse to panic. The Bombers have been overcoming injuries all season long. The fact that they have to overcome another is basically par for the course. The fact that they have solid options such as Nick Swisher, Eric Chavez and Steve Pearce to share playing time in Teixeira’s absence will help soothe their nerves.

Casey McGehee was optioned down to the minors to make room for Pearce, according to Feinsand, but he will also be in the mix for playing time once rosters expand.

Still, Teixeira’s injury couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Yankees have been struggling as of late, losing seven of their past 11 games. They’ve seen their lead in the AL East shrink to 3.5 games over the Baltimore Orioles, and the Tampa Bay Rays are just behind them at four games off the pace.

Because of this, you can rest assured that there’s at least a little squirming going on when the doors to the Yankees’ clubhouse are closed and the players are left to their own devices. They have to know that they’re as ripe for the picking as they’ve been all season, and that Teixeira’s injury could be the straw that finally breaks the camel’s back.

If the AL East wasn’t already up for grabs, it certainly is now.

Simmer down, Yankees fans. But before you go rushing to the comments section to Rabble!-Rabble!-Rabble! my eardrums to smithereens, hear me out on this one. Just consider what the Yankees are losing in Teixeira and what lies ahead on the schedule in his absence.

Much has been made of the fact that Teixeira is slowly wasting away as a hitter, and this is very much true. His OPS has dropped each year since his excellent 2009 season. 

But it’s not like he’s a useless hitter. His .813 OPS on the season is good for 10th among major-league first basemen, and he has an .826 OPS since the All-Star break with eight home runs in 38 games. His total of 23 home runs on the season ties him for sixth among major-league first basemen.

He may not be an elite hitter anymore, but pitchers are still well aware of the power that Teixeira brings to the table. That’s why he’s spent much of this season protecting Robinson Cano in the Yankees’ lineup, and that’s worked out pretty well for Cano. He’s currently sitting on a career-best .929 OPS.

With Teixeira out of the picture for the next week or two (or three), Girardi is going to be dealing with a shortage of options to protect Cano in the lineup. Swisher has established himself as a great fit for the No. 2 spot, and names like Chavez, Pearce and McGehee aren’t going to strike as much fear into the hearts of pitchers as a name like Teixeira (though Chavez is no pushover, to say the least).

Curtis Granderson is an option to protect Cano, but he’s not a lock to be a solution, seeing as how he’s hitting under .200 in August.

The Yankees will be weaker offensively as long as Teixeira is out of commission. Let’s not kid ourselves by thinking otherwise.

They’ll also be weaker defensively, which is an area where Teixeira still shines as brightly as ever.

The only first baseman in the major leagues who’s on the same kind of level as Teixeira defensively these days is Adrian Gonzalez. According to FanGraphs, he and Teixeira have the rest of the field beat by a wide margin when it comes to UZR and DRS. With Gonzalez gone to the National League, the first base Gold Glove in the AL is as good as Teixeira’s.

The entire infield benefits from Teixeira’s presence. He and Cano make for one of the best infield tandems in the majors, and Teixeira has always helped out the left side of the Yankees’ infield defense by scooping low throws out of the dirt and doing other such things to keep dreaded E’s from ending up next to their names.

Swisher can hold his own at first base, but he’s not as gifted defensively as Teixeira. Same goes for whomever else the Yankees choose to put there.

And seeing as how the Yankees’ pitching staff has the sixth-highest ground-ball percentage in the American League, the Yankees could actually miss Teixeira more on defense than they’ll miss him on offense while he’s gone.

Are the Yankees suddenly a train wreck of a team along the lines of the Houston Astros just because Teixeira’s going to be out for a little while?

No. They’re still going to be capable of winning ballgames. It helps that they have a pitching staff that’s still somewhat intact.

But they may have to be content to tread water until Teixeira comes back, and that’s a proposal that doesn’t bode well given their upcoming schedule.

The Yankees don’t have a lot of breathing room between them and their two pursuers in the AL East. It just so happens that a 10-game stretch against Baltimore and Tampa Bay is looming, and seven of those 10 games are going to be played on the road.

The Yankees are going to host the Orioles for a three-game series at Yankee Stadium this weekend before departing on a 10-game road trip that will include three games at the Rays, four at the Orioles and three at the Red Sox.

After it’s all over, the Yankees will come home to play the Rays again in a three-game series.

Teixeira may not be back until the Yankees arrive in Baltimore. If luck is not on his side, he may not even be back before the road trip comes to a close.

The Orioles and Rays are never going to get a better chance to make up ground than the one they’re both staring at right now. If the Orioles make the most of their upcoming seven games against the Yankees, they could find themselves in first place in the division. If things really go south for the Yankees, they could find themselves sitting in third place behind both the Orioles and the Rays by the middle of September.

Likely? Not really. Perhaps by virtue of some sorcery, the Yankees tend to stay alive when they seem to be on the brink of death.

But possible? Absolutely. The Orioles are dangerous because of how clutch they are in close games and because of how obvious it is that Buck Showalter has his players believing in the team’s chances this season. The Rays are a threat because their pitching staff is as good as any in baseball, and because they’re simply a different team with Evan Longoria back in their lineup.

Keep in mind that it’s not like the Yankees are head and shoulders better than the Orioles and Rays to begin with. Both clubs have better records than the Bombers in August, and the Yankees are just 6-5 against the Orioles and 5-7 against the Rays on the season.

So strap yourselves in. Things are already a little too close for comfort for the Yankees in the AL East. But with Teixeira out of the mix for the time being, it’s going to be a free-for-all between the three teams at the top, and the Yankees shouldn’t be considered the odds-on favorite to be sitting pretty in the end.

The Yankees have been fortunate in their ability to fight through whatever injuries the baseball gods have felt like dishing out this season. It may be just a matter of time before their luck finally runs out.

If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Success certainly raises the bar, as the Boston Red Sox have learned.

Two World Series titles in the first decade of the new millennium made the Red Sox more like the New York Yankees than they probably care to be. As the payroll increased, so did expectations. When those expectations weren’t met, the ax fell. First on manager Terry Francona and general manager Theo Epstein, and now on the core of the team expected to contend this season.

Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford are headed to Dodger town with their silly money contracts in one of the biggest trades in baseball history, according to the Associated Press via ESPN.

The Red Sox get James Loney and some prized Dodger prospects as they rebuild in the image of first-year general manager Ben Cherington. And the third-highest payroll in the major leagues behind the Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies just nose-dived like the stock market in the crash of 2008.

But should Yankee fans rejoice as the Red Sox raise the white flag and begin to rebuild?

Or are the Bronx Bombers facing a similar fate in 2013 or 2014?

The Red Sox aren’t finished cutting ties with the glory days of the early 2000s. David Ortiz is probably spending his final months in a Boston uniform. John Lester may be on the trading block, and perhaps Dustin Pedroia too, even though he is a fan favorite.

No one knows whether Bobby Valentine will be back as manager.

The Yankees do not have the toxic clubhouse problems that initiated the dismantling of the Red Sox. Like their rivals, however, they are an aging team saddled with contracts that are weighing them down. They are also adhering to a philosophy that the free-spending days of George Steinbrenner are over and that the Yankees will have a payroll of $185 million going forward to avoid a luxury tax.

Most teams would salivate having that kind of money to spend, but in New york this represents belt-tightening.

Nick Swisher will be a free agent as will catcher Russell Martin. Curtis Granderson and Robinson Cano will be entering their walk year in 2013.

And A-Rod and Mark Teixeira are being paid for production they don’t deliver anymore.

The progress of the young arms in the farm system has been delayed by injuries, and there aren’t any position players that appear to be ready to step into the lineup in 2013.

The Yankees have managed to keep winning, however, but the question is whether or not this will allow them to avoid the Red Sox’s fate. Or is it simply delaying the inevitable?

Let’s look at a few Yankees who may not be wearing pinstripes in the future: 

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The Texas Rangers have been known for quite some time as a team that usually wins with their bats. They are third in Major League Baseball since 2000 in runs scored and this is a team that has only been to the postseason twice since the turn of the millennium.

This offense has featured many prolific names but there are five that stand out from all the rest. We will be ranking these players by their WAR (wins above replacement) which is a stat that represents the number of wins that a player’s presence translates to compared to a replacement player.

Since runs are dependent on other batters, it is not appropriate to gauge worth using that stat which is why WAR is being used. Read on for more.

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Popular opinion regarding how certain major league teams and players start a season generally holds that all authoritative conclusions made before June 1 are premature. Because teams and players turn cold starts into fine seasons, and hot starts into prolonged slumps, forecasting performance based on the season’s initial third often results in poor predictions. 

All the experts who eulogized David Ortiz’s career at 34 years old in May 2009 certainly learned hard the lesson that two months of at-bats is simply not enough to accurately predict a player’s rest-of-season destiny. If it were, Ortiz might have ended up with something like eight home runs and 50 RBI instead of the 28 and 99 that approximate his career averages.

The season’s first two months, as in all, feature slow-starting household names as well as no-namers lighting pitching staffs on fire.

For those struggling, like Albert Pujols and Tim Lincecum, it is hard to fathom them continuing in their futility. Likewise, it is suspect to assume that the likes of Lance Lynn and Chris Capuano will continue their Cy Young performances throughout the season on the mound.

Superficial stats are often fool’s gold when predicting future success, which is why a glimpse at the underlying vital signs of these 10 players sheds light on just what can be expected from them as the calendar flips to June.

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