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This is just too easy. Can of corn. It's like, some of this stuff, I can just pluck right out of last year's column.
As baseball season kicks off tonight, here are my predictions for 2014:
- Derek Jeter retires as the greatest Yankees shortstop of all time, with a final line of .275/.340/.370, a dozen homers and 60 RBIs, passing Cap Anson on the career hit list with his 3436th.
- Jeter will appear on Saturday Night Live with Donald Trump (or Darrell Hammond).
- In a sit-down with Oprah, Alex Rodriguez will come across better than Lance Armstrong.
- The New York Yankees miss the postseason and at least one Steinbrenner goes berserk, with either Joe Girardi or Brian Cashman exiting by mid-October.
- The Boston Red Sox miss Stephen Drew more than they expected.
- The American League Cy Young Award goes to David Price.
- AL Rookie of the Year: Masahiro Tanaka.
- The American League East will finish this way: Rays, Red Sox (Wild Card), Yankees, Orioles, Jays.
- Several prominent Major Leaguers will miss action, delayed by visa problems.
- "Five-tool player" regains its rightful position as the most overused phrase in baseball, leaving "we all have to be on the same page" in the dust. "Flu-like symptoms," "strained oblique," "anything can happen in a short series," "back in the day," "intestinal fortitude," "chain of custody," "there's no crying in baseball," and "it's only May" round out the top 10.
- Countless players, play-by-play guys, and color commentators will refer to a just-completed contest using the word "tonight," even though it was a day game.
