FIGHT FOR 1ST
Healthy again, Bird eyes beating out Voit to get his job back
TAMPA — One day you are Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge. You are Miguel Andujar and Gleyber Torres.
You are today and tomorrow and, snap, somehow it happens so quick that you are trying not to be yesterday.
Greg Bird came late in the 2015 season and with one precocious at-bat after another seemed to establish himself for long-term residence as the Yankees’ first baseman. He was 22 and he says now how much he was looking forward to seeing all those talented guys he played with in the minors join him in the majors.
Instead, they have passed him, and so has Luke Voit, who was not even a Yankee until July of last season. The pages get turned fast in the majors — one day you are 22 with an unlimited future, the next Luke Voit is ahead of you on the depth chart; loser goes to the minors.
“I wish I was sitting here and I had played the last three seasons and this conversation was about the last three seasons,” Bird said Wednesday morning. “But I didn’t.”
In this first-base competition, Bird is the one trying to prove he is not fragile, having missed so much of the past three years with injury. Voit yearns to demonstrate he was no fluke after launching 14 homers in 132 late-season Yankees at-bats. It gives this a tinge of Yankees nostalgia — Nick Johnson versus Shane Spencer: The sweetswinging lefty first baseman who could not stay on the field against the stocky righty outfielder who arrived late in 1998 as a homer-hitting meteor, never to reach those heights again.
Bird and Voit are aware of the comparisons. Bird said: “I am hoping my story is a little different.” While Voit explained: “I don’t want to disrespect [Spencer], but I want to make my own name. I want to be Luke Voit. Look, I get it, the guy came up and had an unbelievable end of the season into the postseason and helped them win a World Series, but I don’t want to be a fluke. I want to show the world, show New York City and show baseball that I can hit and hit really well in the big leagues.”
Brian Cashman has designated Voit the favorite in honor of his quick 2018 climb to the middle of the Yankees lineup. “But,” Cashman said, “I come from a horseracing background, and I know every race has a favorite and it does not mean the race is run that way.”
And, in actuality, the Yanks fit better if Bird wins. With Didi Gregorius out a few months, switchhitting Aaron Hicks and Brett Gardner are the lone lefties, unless Bird makes the club. In that scenario, DJ LeMahieu becomes the righty who starts against lefties and the roster has greater flexibility with the plan to take 13 pitchers.
But Aaron Boone and Cashman insist best man wins — no edges to lefties. Besides, the Yankees handled righty pitching fine last season and Voit pummeled it (1.015 OPS).
Voit, who is built like a soda machine with arms, might not look the part, but insists he is a good hitter, not just a burly power guy. The Yankees analytic department, which found underlying elements in Aaron Hicks and Chad Green to encourage trades, saw the same with Voit — enough so, in fact, that it believes he was no 2018 fluke.
“My goal is to win the job and become the starting first baseman of the New York Yankees,” Voit said. “That is nothing against Greg. I want to be on this team and I want to help them win [championship] No. 28.”
Bird’s goals are the same and declares his mind and body in the right place for the clash. He called 2016, when he missed the whole year to shoulder surgery, the worst because he had just opened his door in 2015. He was brilliant in spring 2017, fouled a ball off his foot late, never got right, needed surgery, yet still was the hitter in that year’s ALCS the Astros were trying to avoid. Last spring, he knew the ankle still was damaged. But he kept telling Yankees officials all was good — such is life when you are trying to dismiss an injury-prone label.
Eventually, he needed more surgery to remove a spur. His season was basically ruined. Voit showed up and took his job in 2018, now maybe beyond. This spring, though, those who are assessing Bird noticed his legs are back in his swing and there is more muscle in his upper half.
“I would honestly take this spring over last spring any day of the week,” Bird said. “I am healthy. I will take being healthy and having a normal spring and not being penciled in [as the starter] over being penciled in and not being healthy.”
He tries to prove he is not fragile, Voit that he is no fluke. Is this Nick Johnson and Shane Spencer 2.0 or two quality first basemen about to create a difficult choice for the Yankees?