UPDATED! Cody Ransom may get to test his super-athlete skills on the big stage

Yesterday, this video was making the rounds in the Yankee blogosphere, following Johnny Damon's quote that Cody Ransom is the best athlete on the Yankees other than Alex Rodriguez.

Not even a day later, ESPN is reporting that A-Rod will miss 10 weeks due to the pesky cyst on his hip, giving Cody Ransom the chance to prove that his athleticism is worth more than fake internet money.

We can't wait until Replacement Level Yankees Weblog runs the analysis of just how much of a hit the Yankees will take in runs/wins due to Cody Ransom starting 40+ games. The numbers are unlikely to be good news for Yankee fans. There probably isn't a bigger drop-off in all of baseball.

UPDATE (2:15 PM): Dave Cameron over at FanGraphs is the first to weigh in on exactly how much this will cost the Yankees:

In reality, even if Rodriguez isn’t affected by his hip injury at all past April, and plays a full season from May-September, this injury is going to cost the Yankees around one win off their projected total unless they can trade for a quality third baseman. In the AL East, losing a win is a pretty big deal.

This is bad news for the Yankees. Cashman is going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat in the next few weeks.

So there you have it - best case scenario is that they lose one win. Ugh.

UPDATE (3:39 PM): Andrew over at Scott Proctor's Arm was the first in the Yankee blogosphere to aggregate this one. Apparently A-Rod has a torn labrum in his hip. I have heard of this in the shoulder, but not the hip. Can't wait until Will Carrol of Baseball Prospectus chimes in. Also, Peter Abraham chimed in with the official word from Cashman, including word that A-Rod will NOT have surgery, but just rehab. We all remember how well that worked out for Posada last year. One thing is for sure, A-Rod's 2009 Fantasy Baseball value just plummeted. Then again, people were saying the same thing about Albert Pujols last year at this time and he had a pretty good season.

UPDATE (4:24 PM): Cliff over at Bronx Banter points out that Mike Lowell and Chase Utley played through similar hip injuries last season, and they were pretty debilitating. All signs pointing to this being as disastrous of a day as the Yankees could have ever imagined. By the way, Stephania Bell of ESPN predicted the labrum tear way earlier, when everyone just thought this was a steroid-related cyst injury.

UPDATE (8:07 PM): SG at Replacement Level Yankees Weblog brings us the bad news on what losing A-Rod for the whole season and replacing him with Berroa or Ransom would mean. Predictably, the loss means around 1 less win per month that A-Rod is out. Lets hope A-Rod can gut through it like Mike Lowell.

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