Manny's Crystal Ball

Opening Day means it's prediction time. I'm sure I'll be dead wrong on some of these, and come October some jerk will read this on the archives and see how stupid I was. But who cares, I like predictions. Here goes nothing:

- Johnny Damon does pretty well in his first year as a Yankee, but Coco Crisp puts up better numbers.

- Cano's numbers drop off somewhat from last year, but he still ends up as one of the better 2B in the league.

- The Yankees' most consistent starter in '06? Shawn Chacon.

- Aaron Small will be out of baseball by the All-Star break.

- Farnsworth will be the latest newcomer that can't handle New York. Dotel will develop as a setup man, but the Yanks will have the usual revolving door of Buddy Grooms and Gabe Whites.

- With his new contract and no rest, Shemp Matsui's numbers will slip. Not too much, but they won't go up.

- Posada will suck.

- Bernie will be on the bench come August. The Yankees will look for a Glenallen Hill-type to take over at DH.

- The Yankees will end up with the wild card this year. A healthy Schilling and Beckett lead the Red Sox to the top of the division.

- The Big Unit will blow another playoff game, A-Rod will forget how to hit, and the Yanks will have another first-round loss.

- And the White Sox will repeat as World Champs.

-- I liked what I saw from the Red Sox today. Especially coming against one of the AL's top offensive clubs. If they have more games like that, they'll be in very good shape.

And I always get a little pleasure when the Yanks start off the season on the road. It's nice to see Opening Day being celebrated in Shea. Especially when half of New York is asleep by the fifth inning of the Yankee game. Looking forward to seeing the Mets on the back page of the tabloids this year (in a good way), and hopefully a lot more than in years past.