BREAKING NEWS: Teix Out 8-10 Weeks With A Sprained Wrist Tendon

Well it's not the worst news in the world considering the body parts and the tendency for wrist injuries to linger, but it's certainly not good.  The diagnosis is in on Mark Teixeira's injured right wrist and according to Dan Barbarisi it's a strained ECU tendon.

Multiple beat writers are reporting that Joe has said Teix will have four weeks of rest and no baseball activity and then another 4-6 of rehab.  No surgery scheduled or anything like that, which is a small silver lining here, but 8-10 weeks out puts Teix out of action until mid-to-late May.  With Curtis Granderson already on the shelf until then, this is shaping up to be a rough start to the season.

** UPDATE 4:00PM- Via Andy McCollough: "Cashman said he was told Teixeira's injury is similar to the one Jose Bautista suffered last year. Which is, um, concerning."  Uhh, ya think??  That injury ended Bautista's season last year and ultimately resulted in surgery after rest and rehab weren't enough to heal it. **

Triple-R Game 2013: Regression

(Sorry, Kuroda fans.  Don't expect a repeat of 2012.  Courtesy of Getty Images)

Last year I introduced a simple, mainly space-filling post series during the offseason doldrums of January as a way to start laying the groundwork for season preview posts and setting my own personal expectations for the season.  If you remember it from last year, I called it the "Triple-R Game," the three R's standing for regress, remain, and rebound, and the whole point was to go through the projected 25-man roster and predict whether each played was due to regress from his previous season production, rebound from it, or remain at the same level.  I was admittedly inconsistent with my predictions at best.  I completely botched the infield, pretty much nailed the outfield, and was about 50/50 with the entire pitching staff.

The 2013 edition of the Triple-R Game is starting up later than it did last year, but with the shiny new toy syndrome of Spring Training wearing off, most of the top prospects getting reassigned to MiL camp, and season preview time not too far away, it seems like the perfect time.  I figured it was easier to split the groups up by expected "R" outcome rather than position this year, so we'll start off with the regressors.

Jeter's Replacement Nowhere To Be Found

(Ahh, the jump throw.  Courtesy of Ron Antonelli/NY Daily News)

(Originally published at IIATMS/TYA)

As much as everybody likes to talk about the Yankees' failures when it comes to developing young pitching, a conversation that's not as failure-filled as some people like to think, there's another area on the roster where they haven't exactly been churning out winners recently and that's at shortstop.  They've had the benefit of Derek Jeter being a fixture at the position for the last 17 years, but Jeter's time is winding down and the Yankees are nowhere closer to finding his replacement than they were when talks of Jeter retiring first started.

So That Injury Report Is Filling Up, Quick, Huh?

There was plenty of other more positive news to talk about yesterday, but the biggest story in camp, as it has been multiple times already this spring, was injury-related.  Mark Teixeira was scratched from Team USA's WBC exhibition game and then scratched entirely from the roster after injuring his right wrist in the batting cage.  More tests will be done today, but it already doesn't sound good.  If that wasn't enough, David Robertson was unable to make his appearance in last night's ST game because of trouble getting his arm loosened up.

Not to be a Debbie Downer or anything, but if you're keeping score at home the Yankees are currently on track to enter the regular season with at least moderate injury concerns at the following positions:

• First base- Teix
• Shortstop- Jeter
• Third base- Youkilis & A-Rod
• Left field- Gardner (always a risk with the diving)
• Center field- C-Grand
• DH- Hafner
• Starting rotation- CC, Hughes, Andy (always a risk because he's old)
• Bullpen- Mo, Logan, Aardsma, D-Rob??