Unexepected injury? Check. Visit to the scrap heap? Check. Is this the meltdown year?

This is not good.

On April 11, Mark Teixeira turns 36. He'll be coming off a broken foot, and who knows what? He'll be nursing something. He is always nursing something. And he'll be our only pure 1B.

When Tex goes down - he always goes down eventually - we'll spit-glue something. Is Lyle Overbay still out there? We'll move Carlos Beltran to 1B, or Dustin Ackley, a 2B. We'll bring up Toby McRetread from Wilkes Barre - where's Kyle Roller - to fill the void, until Tex's gonad untweaks, or his whatever stops whatevering. We'll go from a switch-hitting Number 3 slugger to whatever Brian Cashman can find on the scrap heap.

Did I mention that, as you're reading this now, Cash is wandering the scrap heap?

That big Yankee 2016 youth resurgence now looks like Dustin Ackley and - wait - could we get Jesus Montero?

I still can't believe it. Greg Bird... gone for 2016. Greg Bird, the guy who would spell Tex, maybe outdo Tex... gone for 2016. Greg Bird, the next great Yankee, the next Core Four member, the guy who was going to keep us competitive with Boston... gone for 2016. And it's a shoulder, the kind of injury that can turn a future star into a Could Have Been... gone for 2016.

How do we check out of this hotel?

Ever get the feeling that this could be the Yankees' Bobby Valentine year?

Around this time last February, it was a catching prospect named Luis Torrens, plus a pile a pitchers in need of Tommy John. (That's the real problem: We don't know how many promising young pitchers will throw hard and then leave for surgery.) Torrens was being pushed by the Yankiverse propaganda machine... and then he was gone for 2015.

These things happen, of course. Injuries are part of the game, right?

But the worst part here might turn out to be that we traded Eric Jagielo to Cinncinati in the El Chapo deal. At the time, we rationalized giving up Jagielo because he looks like a future 1B, and thus, he'd be blocked by Bird. Now, Jagielo looks like the last guy we should have included in a four-prospect bargain bin, and all our well planned plans - we don't look so smart anymore, eh?

But this we know: At some point next year, Tex will get hurt. Maybe he'll play through it - a situation with its own set of consequences. (See Jacoby Ellsbury.) Either way, the big 2016 youth movement just blew a flat tire. Greg Bird... gone for 2016.

This is not good.