It Is Almost Time

I've never been a slave to order and organization, so I am making my prediction now.  Duque can mark them unofficial if he so chooses.

1.  The Yankees will win 89 games...no more, no less.

2.  Boston will win the AL East

Here is why I am not as optimistic as most:

A.  The Greg Bird thing is not going away.  I see him missing most of the year or grossly underperforming, due to this now chronic injury.

B.  The second base thing, created by trading Castro, will not be easily resolved.  Wade will not continue the hot streak he has shown in Florida.  He will, therefore, be liberally replaced by Walker.  Wade will then recede emotionally, and return to the rarely used player of last season, and perform accordingly.  In other words, Boone will not show him the patience and confidence required to overcome a slow start.

C.  Just doing the math:  that puts a " place-holder " at both first base and second base.

D.  The Yankees will feel obligated to use Stanton, from time to time, in the outfield.  This weakens our defense by a factor of fifty ( okay, I don't know what that means, either ).  But he is a liability in the outfield.  He turns outs into doubles.  And when Boone is hit in the face with this shit pie, he will use him as our $165 million DH.  Soon, Giancarlo will wish he had stayed where he was.  And Judge will not grow in the days he is used as our DH.

E.  Judge is not going to hit 50+ Homers again this season.  He just isn't.

F.  Drury is a wild card.  He will either surprise us on the upside, or simply be blah.  But can he be a clutch "banger" in critical games against Boston?  Up to now, he has never played an important game in the majors.  This is a risk, and we don't get the "upside" of a rookie surprising everyone.

G.  The first base thing, from the flip side: If Greg can't play, who can?  The oft-injured Austin?  Another homer or strikeout guy?  Walker?  Please...this is a sick idea.  Second basemen don't move over to first and thrive.  They maybe give you a bandaid for a day, but it won't work long term.  Adam Lind ( yawn)?  At least he knows how to play there.  Is that Cooper guy still bouncing around?  This is a serious weakness and likely to remain so.  It rips the heart out both our offense and our defense.

H.  Pitching.  Ah yes.  I fear the reliability of our two closers. And we all know that someone will develop an ailment.  I can see the Black Swan circling from here.

I.  I still don't buy into Aaron Hicks.  He had an all star beginning last season.  I love his speed, his glove, and his arm.  But his hitting remains suspect.  If he has arrived, we are in pretty good shape.  If not.....then what?

This is not what we expected when spring training started.  We don't have "Red Thunder;"  Gleybar Torres bombed out;  Andjuhar played well, but the Yankees don't trust him yet; no one surfaced on the pitching staff (as Montgomery did last season); Bird went from a post season batting star to a question mark; the Stanton thing is more problematic than it appears; our infield might be "DIDI" and three others.  Tyler Wade is the only "rookie" who made the team.  Cashman has dealt away a boatload of young prospects to get us to this.

89 wins will be a good year.