Write this down: 96 Yankee wins, the return of Greg Bird, and a revolution in beer drinking

Comrades: Take a long gander into the picture on the right. Tomorrow Land is here! Humankind has finally ascended to that magnificent, Asgardian plane of joy and rapture, where our loved ones - Yankee players! - serve as tour guides in our regular journeys to the Isle of Stagger and Puke. 

Once again, the Yankees are leading a revolution - this time, not in revenue-generating TV networks or stadium tax breaks - but in consumption of beer. Naturally, the pearl-clutching, golden-shower-seeking, oh-dear!s of MLB are worried - mainly that they'll miss out on the beer-foam pie. They actually want to stop this innovation. Can you believe it? These insufferable Beyonce-biters suddenly claim it's wrong for baseball to link itself to beer. To beer. As in the Milwaukee Brewers. Or Coors Stadium. Or Busch. Or Bud. Or craft beer nights. Suddenly, baseball is too hoity-toity for - (pausing now to swig) - beer.

Listen: This is the greatest thing that ever happened to the seventh-inning pee-break, which some people still wrongfully call a "stretch." It's amazing: The lords of the game don't want this? Good luck with that. What we are witnessing is the March of Humankind toward a greater realm, known as Yankee Stadium, and from now on, when guzzling by myself - as a certain Mr. Christie Brinkley once said, I'll be sharing a drink that's called Yankinees, 'cuz it's better than drinkin' alone...

Which reminds me... ah, yes... the Yankees...

The Yankees will win 96 games this year and take the AL East by five games. That's me talking, not the faces in my beer,. They simply have too much firepower in the starting lineup and, more importantly, a wave of hungry youngsters eager to replace them. Seriously. If Aaron Judge goes down next month, Clint Frazier could step in, and who knows what he'd do? This isn't a case of bringing up Ben Francisco and Zolio Almonte. We would replace veterans with Gleyber Torres and Miguel Andujar... and actually improve.

Boston is the only team capable of beating us; the Rays, O's and Jays will be in tank-mode by July 4. But the Redsocks are way overspent - a $223 million payroll, more than $20 million above the second place Giants - and still lack replacement parts for when the front-liners go down. 

So let's address what you're thinking: What about Greg Bird? Yes, it's a huge loss for the first two months, and it calls into question Bird's long term future. But last year at this time, we'd lost Didi Gregorius for six weeks, and in a matter of days, we would lose Gary Sanchez for five more. In the modern era, it's a given that almost every player will go down for a while. What's different with Bird this year (from last) - hopefully, of course - is that:

a) the doctors have diagnosed it and treated it

b) we have a young Tyler Austin (who hit .373 last year against lefties) platooning with Neil Walking (.277 against righties)

c) we're not using the sinking barge known as Chris Carter. 

The Redsocks will be tough, especially if David Price returns to form. But he's approaching Sabathia status with injuries - (hasn't gone a full season in two years) - and their rotation is already missing Pomeranz and Rodriguez. They're still waiting for "Machine Gun" Kelly to emerge, and they have a better chance of seeing Rusney Castillo arrive in a UFO.

Ninety-six wins, folks. If you haven't already done it, put in your 2018 wins prediction below. I'll tally them up for posterity, and somebody will be feted on this site along with Irritabelle, the spandex IBS Lady, maybe chomping on Beyonce - yes, a convergence of Yankee peace and harmony that surely portends The End of Everything. Long ago, Nietzsche - the philosopher, not the linebacker - predicted that 50 years after the world wars, humankind would descend into the Abyss, otherwise known as cynicism. What a moron. He deserves to see his face in beer foam.