For the most part, many Yankee fans think of the Baby Bombers era as starting in August 2016, as that is the month when Aaron Judge hit a home run in his first Major League plate appearance and Gary Sánchez unleashed the Kraken en route to a runner-up finish in the Rookie of the Year vote despite playing only 53 games. And yet, in truth, the first two prospects of the era had reached the Bronx the previous year, as Luis Severino and today’s birthday boy, Greg Bird, made a splash and helped lead the Yankees
to the 2015 Wild Card Game — their first postseason appearance in three years.
Gregory Paul Bird
Born: November 9, 1992 (Memphis, Tennessee)
Yankees Tenure: 2015, 2017-2019
Born in Tennessee and raised in Colorado, Bird made a name for himself as a catcher at Grandview High School in Aurora, Colorado, where he was named the Colorado Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year for his performance as a senior. From there, he committed to the University of Arkansas; before he ever made it to campus, he was drafted by the New York Yankees in the fifth round of the 2011 draft.
Bird made his professional debut with a brief cameo with the Gulf Coast League Yankees in 2011, before embarking on his first full season with the Short-A Staten Island Yankees. After he was limited to just 28 games due to a back injury, the Yankees moved Bird out from behind the plate, in an effort to both keep him healthy and ensure that his bat remained in the lineup on a more consistent basis. That decision paid off in a big way in 2013: not only did he post a .288/.428/.511 slash line with 20 homers with the Low-A Charleston Riverdogs, but he caught the eye of Alex Rodriguez when the latter was on a rehab assignment.
On the back of his 2013 performance, Bird climbed up prospect rankings, starting the 2014 season as the seventh-ranked prospect in the Yankees organization. Although he missed time with back injuries, he continued his success in 2014, and then went on to be named MVP of the Arizona Fall League. That winter, he hit his apex as a prospect, as Keith Law — then with ESPN, now with The Athletic — named him the 80th overall prospect in all of baseball.
Bird continued his rapid ascent in 2015, conquering Double-A and Triple-A before getting the call to The Show in the middle of August. Taking advantage of playing time afforded to him by an injury to Mark Teixeira, he seized the first base job and ran with it, posting a .261/.343./.529 line (good for a 135 OPS+) with 11 home runs in just 46 games. As the offseason began, it was clear that the Greg Bird era had begun.
Unfortunately, the Greg Bird Era didn’t even make it to spring training. Right before pitchers and catchers reported in February 2016, the Yankees announced that their young first baseman had undergone season-ending shoulder surgery — the first domino to fall in what would become a disastrous season for the Yankees.
The Yankees entered the 2017 season with the lowest expectation in years, as the team committed to giving playing time to the top prospects. Thanks to his 2015 performance and his strong spring training, Bird began the season as the Yankees’ three-hole hitter on Opening Day, sandwiched between 2016 breakout star Sánchez and the veteran free agent Matt Holliday. However, he never quite got it going at the plate, slashing just .107/.265/.214 before hitting the shelf with a foot injury at the start of May. After a three-month disaster of a rehab that ended with him undergoing surgery to remove a bone in his foot, Bird finally returned to the active roster on August 26th; by this point, he was no longer guaranteed a spot in the starting lineup, as the team had been using Chase Headley at first after acquiring third baseman Todd Frazier in July.
For his part, Bird forced his way back into the lineup, slashing .253/.316/.575 with eight home runs in 29 games down the stretch. Then, when the calendar flipped to October, he came up big when the lights shone brightest: not only did he put up a .938 OPS with five extra-base hits over the course of the postseason, he hit a clutch home run off former teammate Andrew Miller in Game 3 of the ALDS to keep the Yankees’ season alive and kickstart a three-game winning streak that erased an 0-2 deficit.
Unfortunately, that would be Bird’s last real Yankees highlight. Injuries and ineffectiveness plagued him across the next two seasons, limiting him to just 92 games in that stretch. He lost the first base job to 2018 Trade Deadline acquisition Luke Voit, and in November 2019, he was finally designated for assignment.
Bird spent the next few years bouncing around the minors, spending time with the Rangers, Phillies, Rockies, and Blue Jays, before returning to the Yankees farm for a few months at the start of the 2022 season. He never made it back to the Majors, however, and since 2023, he has gone overseas: he spent 2023 in Quebec, the winter of 2023-2024 in Australia, and 2024 in Mexico. While it’s not clear whether or not he’s officially retired, an article in The Athletic from 2024 showed that he is at peace with his inability to build on his strong 2015 season.
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.
