Baseball!!!!1!one!

It would be highly presumptuous of me to think anyone would actually wade through the War and Peace-esque (in length only, of course) post I just submitted, so I'm going to contribute something readable. Plus I'm really bored on a Friday night because somebody doesn't want to go see There Will Be Blood. So: 5 things that will happen in baseball this year, a rebuttal.

1. Juan Pierre will contribute 700 glorious plate appearances to the Los Angeles Dodgers while playing a wonderfully decent left field. He'll make an out in 476 of them. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier will start the season platooning in right field, until they get off to a slow start in their first two games. They're given to the Marlins, along with $8 million; in return the Dodgers get Luis Gonzalez back.

2. For the fourth straight year, the Padres and their penny pinchin' ways will finish ahead of the Dodgers, fueled by a healthy Randy Wolf (cut loose from the Dodgers last year) and Mark Prior. Kevin Kouzmanoff will continue to prove anyone who judged the trade a win for the Indians last year in May (cough, Emerson, cough) completely wrong by hitting .300 with 25 homers. Something good will finally happen in the postseason for San Diego fans for the first time since Sterling Hitchcock roamed the Qualcomm Stadium mound.

3. Sorry, Cubs, next year became this year 11 days ago. Except that the Cubs are actually the best team in a terrible NL Central, so they'll reach October with a 1 in 8 chance at making their fans 1000 times more annoying.

4. The Boston Yankees and New York Red Sox (or is it the other way around, I don't really know anymore because they're basically the same team - oh snap!) will both miss the playoffs as Toronto will rally by them on the backs of an incredible pitching staff. In all seriousness, look at the Jays staff, it's really, really good. The Rays claim the wildcard when their Wade Davis and Jake McGee and David Price and Evan Longoria and Desmond Jennings (ok, he's too much of a stretch even if he is a great prospect) and Jeff Niemann are all ready much sooner than expected. A 6 year Tampa Bay dynasty is begun. Even in defeat, Buchholz wins 18 games with a 3.2 ERA, proving that yes, he is way better than Matt Garza (who is mostly just average, in contrast to all the other great young Tampa pitchers), and yes, Buchholz, Chris Young (the short one), and Yunel Escobar is a better package than Tulowitzki, Kemp, and Garza.

5. Barry Bonds signs with the Oakland A's to "mentor" their young players. Carlos Gonzalez suddenly develops 60 homer power, Brett Anderson breaks Mike Piazza's bat tossing him BP, then picks it up and throws it at him, and Eric Chavez actually stays healthy for the entire year.

Looks like it's going to be an exciting year in baseball.