"Let me tell you how it will be..."

 

"...Maybe there even would be a trip to blue Hawaii. I certainly didn't wanna stop it. But in the fun house, how do you know who's really crazy?"

—Jack Nicholson, The King of Marvin Gardens

All right, so we're doing this.?

You guys almost had me going for a few minutes, looking at how splendid so many of our hitters look this spring—and how weak the American League looks. All those young teams made up of guys we've never heard of.  

Hey, we can dream, can't we?

Well, cut it out. You're playing right into the hands of the evil juju gods, desperate for an encore after last year's master class in sadism.  

—Sure, Ben Rice and Austin Wells look like the real deal this spring. They did for parts of last year, too. But are we going to see three-home-runs-in-a-game Ben Rice, or .171 in 50 games Ben Rice? Are we going to see .325 August Austin...or 14 hits after Sept. 1 Austin—the same Austin who capped off the Game Five Follies by tipping Ohtani's bat?  

You tell me. But first, take a look at your New York Yankees' training and coaching staffs.

After that, you have:

—Jazz Chisholm. Looks great. Missed an average of 68 games a season, 2021-2023.

—Aaron Judge. A genuinely great player...who has missed an average of nearly 29 games a year throughout his major-league career, and is now about to turn 33.

—Anthony Volpe. Which one will show up? The guy who can't hit for power, or the guy who can't steal bases? I know! The guy who strikes out all the time.

—Yes, Bellinger may give us that 25 HR, .270 season. Which would be great...ly below what Juan Soto is going to do in Queens.

—The Martian. I wish him the best. But he's already sustained a serious injury. And be wary of guys who have already lost a skill at such a young age.

—The Masked Third Baseman. Who will it be??? The suspense is unbearable. The answer will be worse.

—Paul Goldschmidt. Would've been great to have him back in the day.

—The bench. Well, yes, there will be a bench in the Yankees' dugout again this year. It looks like a nice one. And an empty one.

But hey, maybe I'm wrong about all of this. Maybe all of these guys will match or exceed what they've been doing in spring training. Maybe somebody we're not even expecting anything from—the Oswaldii? Spencer Jones? Renfield Rumfield?—will come up big.

Maybe.

And if they do...we still don't have any pitching.

A starting staff that's dying by the roadside, and a meh relief corps, with a closer who specializes in off-speed stuff and was last seen giving it up to the Polar Bear. 

Much more likely than the Yankees maneuvering successfully past all of these sinkholes is all of those young AL teams—Baltimore, KC, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota, Seattle—suddenly blossoming, and the likes of Houston, Texas, and yes, those damned Red Sox, reviving.

You heard it here first: 66 wins.