The PECOTA projections are out, and they claim the Yankees have won this crazy winter

Abe PECOTA as "Fish"

Last night, I was talking to an old friend - (key word: "old") - and we agreed: The sixties were nuts, and the millennium blew up everything, but we've never lived through anything as shit-ass crazy as the last few weeks.  God knows where we're going, because I sure don't.  

Now, I don't seek to insult past periods of sheer global insanity. The Iranian hostage situation drove us mad. The weeks after 9-11 were like nothing before. Somehow, we pulled together and - I truly believe this - one eventual salve always turned out to be the period in mid-February, when pitchers and catchers left their golf carts and paramours, and made way to warmer locations to restart the Big Wheel. Baseball has a medicative effect. It reminds us that - whether you love or hate those evil, big-spending Yankees Dodgers- we have more in common than not. Or, we used to, anyway.

I won't claim that we'll soon find reassurance from watching Carlos Rodon do a squat-thrust, or from timing Giancarlo as he runs to first. But it will be entertaining to hear Gerrit Cole explain - once again, in hyperbolic detail - why he failed to cover first base.

Soon, we shall be soothed by the annual Gammonitic rites of spring: The oohs and ahs over that rock-ribbed vet who has arrived "in the greatest shape of his career!" and the rawboned, no-name hurler who is "the talk of camp!"

Days away, people. Pitchers and catchers. And maybe - maybe? - a hiding place?  

Well, fuck me. I dunno. But I do know this: As we were sleeping - while the algorithm gods wrestled over TikTok - the 2025 PECOTA predictions burst from Zeus's backside, fully formed. And get this: The Yankees won the winter! 

Print the playoff tickets. Reserve your space in the Canyon of Heroes. The PECOTA -the Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm - shows the 2025 Yankees winning 89.7 games - the fourth-most, behind the Cubs, Braves and the Evil Empire - and winning the AL East by a half-inning over Baltimore. 

So, there is it. Pete Alonso and Alex Bregman have yet to land, and your Cousin Verne might turn out to be our backup catcher, but the Yankees won the digital off-season. Hey, forget Watergate. Disregard the Covid shutdown. Was anything ever crazier than this?