This hurts with Tex so fragile

IF ALL GOES well for Mark Teixeira in 2016, it really shouldn’t matter that Greg Bird needs season-ending shoulder surgery, as the Yankees announced Monday. But what are odds? Teixeira hasn’t played an injuryfree season since 2011, when he was 31. And while his broken leg last August was a flukish injury, the result of fouling a ball off that leg, it doesn’t make it any more likely that he’ll have good luck at age 36.

So while Bird technically loomed as a luxury for the Yankees this season, with GM Brian Cashman saying there was no place for him on the major-league roster, in truth his injury is likely to wind up being a major blow.

Bird, after all, is considered a cornerstone to the youth movement that Cashman hopes will transform the Yankees over the next few seasons. Filling in for Teixeira late last season he looked like a star in the making, with his lefthanded power and a maturity that belied his rookie status.

Indeed, Yan- kee people couldn’t have been more impressed by how smoothly he adapted to the big leagues, a quality that seemed to enhance Bird’s long-term potential.

If nothing else, then, the need for surgery to repair a torn labrum, an injury that apparently originally occurred last May, could be a setback in Bird’s development. And since the Yankees are looking at him as the everyday first baseman after Teixeira’s contract expires next fall, that’s no small matter.

But what about this season? Bird figured to provide insurance against age and injury, seemingly forever the two biggest issues for the Yankees, and so their margin for error, so to speak, in 2016 has been drastically reduced.

Bird’s bat would have allowed the Yankees to absorb injuries to either Teixeira or 40-year-old Alex Rodriguez, and perhaps both depending on the timing.

Still, it’s Teixeira’s health that is especially vital now, as the Yankees have other options at DH if A-Rod misses time. Carlos Beltran, in fact, is an ideal DH candidate now after the trade for Aaron Hicks gives the Yankees three good defensive outfielders.

And a strong Arizona Fall League season further convinced the Yankees that Gary Sanchez is ready for the big leagues. He seems likely to be the backup catcher to Brian McCann, and while questions about his defense remain, Sanchez’s righthanded power might also fit nicely in the DH spot. But if Teixeira goes down, the best option now is Dustin Ackley, as Cashman said on Monday. It’s still hard to understand why a former All-Star shortstop like A-Rod looked so awkward at first base during his brief stints there last season, but the Yankees aren’t revisiting that experiment.

And they aren’t likely to go out and sign someone like Pedro Alvarez when there are no at-bats for him if Teixeira and A-Rod do stay healthy.

Maybe it’s unfair to presume that Teixeira can’t get through a season without injury. Though he had been hampered by calf and hamstring pulls and most significantly a broken right wrist in recent years, Teixeira played into August last season without any hint of injury.

Maybe it was the “no-fun” diet that he detailed during spring training. In any case, he was having an MVP-caliber season with 31 home runs and a .907 OPS in 111 games, and the way he was hitting, the Yankees might have held off the Blue Jays for the AL East title had he not suffered the broken leg.

So you’d think Teixeira is due some good luck. It’s just that his age and his injury history in recent years are working against him.

That’s why the news on Bird was an ominous start to 2016 for the Yankees, coming on the first day of February with spring training only a couple of weeks away.

After all, we know the deal here: Though Cashman made trades for Hicks, Starlin Castro and Aroldis Chapman that continued to make the Yankees younger and could improve their chances of winning in 2016, it’s the rarest of off-seasons when this franchise doesn’t sign a single major-league free agent.

The Yankees are trying to win, sure, but clearly Hal Steinbrenner is committed to waiting for some big contracts to expire and getting under the luxury-tax threshold before going T all-in again. he new future is being built around the likes of Bird, Sanchez, Luis Severino and Aaron Judge, and while that future isn’t here quite yet, Bird’s showing last season was a comforting development for the Yankees going into 2016.

Now, well, if he returns in 2017 with the same sweet swing and power, the Yankees will be thrilled, no matter how this season goes.

And who knows, maybe they won’t miss Bird at all this season. But would you bet on such good fortune?