Ah… A new season, finally.  Major League Baseball couldn’t start soon enough.  Fantasy owners are chirping about who the sleepers are, fans are purchasing tickets to enjoy a game on a Spring day, and it all starts next week.  Before you laugh at these five predictions, remember who picked the Saints to win the Super Bowl last August, and who picked Butler to beat Syracuse three weeks ago.

The following five items are heavily debated baseball topics for the upcoming year.  Having heard both sides of a few arguments over the past few months, Paneech.com presents the five things you can forget about in the 2010 MLB season.

• The Cleveland Indians will contend.  Forget it.  Cleveland has chosen to go the same route as the Pittsburgh Pirates, profit at the end of the year.  The bullpen was supposed to be the strength of this year’s team, but Kerry Wood is only getting exercise when riding his bike to the Cleveland Clinic.  No closer.  Grady Sizemore and Travis Hafner are both injury prone as well.  Hafner (looking good as always at Spring Training) blows a gasket every May and misses a couple of months.  The rotation is trash.  Mark Redman is the starting catcher even though he couldn’t start anywhere else in recent years.  Finally, Manny Acta, the new manager, has done next to nothing to merit his title, yet he will be shoved down our throats as a savior (ala Mike Holmgren) all season long.  Brace yourselves Tribe fans, it is gonna be a long year.

• The New York Yankees will repeat as champions.  Wrong, they will not.  By spending billions of dollars over the past ten years and walking away with a single championship, the Yankees have regressed.  George’s fat wallet is still on auto pilot, but the level of expectation can’t be matched regardless of what they accomplish during the regular season.  Andy Pettitte should have retired, AJ Burnett is an every other year pitcher with a DL history for blisters.  Can’t Big George afford Bactine and some Band-Aids?  The Yankees will have a potent offense, they always do, especially with the Fisher Price right field poke for a home run at the new stadium.  Pitching will doom the Yankees and expect most of the heat to fall on Joba Chamberlain, a ‘work in progress’ to be a permanent fixture in the starting rotation.

• Toronto should go about .500.  The Blue Jays will be lucky to go .300 this season.  The starting rotation is a mess.  Roy Halladay was it.  Guys that were expected to step up are hurt and the Jays are gonna be hurling a bunch of nobody’s all year long.  Bring back Dennis Lamp, Dave Stieb, Jim Clancy, and Luis Leal, hell…  let Jesse Barfield pitch too, they would all be better than the watermelon lobbing staff that the Canadians will present this season.

• Tim Lincecum will have an off year because of his fat contract signing.  Look for Little Timmy to duplicate last year and then some.  He missed four starts last season and still approached a few records.  The Cy Young will stay by the bay and the Giants, who have other good pitchers, and a prospect named Madison Bumgarner who will make a difference by seasons end, can contend if and only if they get some offense.  Barry Bonds is gone (for now, anyway) and the Giants and Lincecum might be drowning in champagne  this October.

• The Chicago Cubs will suck.  I see the Cubs winning the division this year.  Alfonso Soriano is going to fly back with a season enjoyed by few.  The Cubs are one of the best balanced teams on paper and have a respectable leader in Lou Piniella who knows how to construct winning teams.  The rotation is pretty solid and the position players can hit.  If Aramis Ramirez can stay healthy and Soriano can return to form, beware National League, no one can touch this team.  Expect Zambrano and Lilly to have good numbers and a high amount of quality starts.