Crystal Baseball

In the wake of my NBA bragging -- and before the season gets too far along -- I guess I should throw out some baseball predictions. I know it's still early enough to do this because the Blue Jays and Orioles are battling for first in the A.L. East. That means it's April. Here are some projections and thoughts in five installments:

1. The Yankees will finish above .500. I know this sounds like a very safe prediction, but you wouldn't know it from listening to the New York media, which treats the team's tepid start like a national crisis. That said, I think the Rays win that division again. The Yankees and/or Red Sox will make them earn it, of course, but in my opinion a cohesive group of good young players still beats a cobbled-together roster of high-priced (often over-priced) talent.

2. The Mets will keep their fans in bleeding ulcers. It seems likely that they will be good enough to be in the thick of it again in September. They have too much talent to fall out of it, and the division is too tough for them to run away with it. Where they go from there, who knows? Another late collapse, and the new stadium may as well be a shantytown for all the good feeling it will bring.

3. The Royals will have a decent season. Maybe that just means winning 81 games to go .500, a six-game improvement on last year. Maybe it means a little bit more than that, if they really surprise. There's no good reason to believe they'll do it, but Zack Greinke is poised to become a true ace, Joakim Soria is one of the very best closers in the game (when given things to close), and the lineup is full of scrappy, fast players (Coco Crisp, David DeJesus, Mike Aviles) and at least one guy (Alex Gordon) who could really break out (he's still only 25 years old). Of course, DeJesus and Aviles are hitting .192 and .160, respectively, as I write this, which I know because I have the bums on my fantasy team.

4. Some awards, A.L. and then N.L. in each case:

Cy Young: Greinke and Johan Santana
MVP: Evan Longoria and Albert Pujols
Rookie of the Year: David Price and Cameron Maybin

5. And the even more pointless playoff series predictions:

First round: Mets over Dodgers; Cubs over Phillies; Rays over Twins; Yankees over Angels
Second Round: Cubs over Mets; Rays over Yankees
World Series: Rays over Cubs