Opinion

If there's one thing to know about Major League Baseball, it's that assuming you know anything before the games get started is foolish. 

Last year, for instance, if someone would have said in April that the Boston Red Sox would win the World Series, or the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians would make the playoffs, you would have looked at them as if they had three heads. 

It's only fitting that the New York Yankees are one of the final two teams, along with Tuesday night's opponents, the Houston Astros, to experience their first game of the 2014 season.

As Derek Jeter's 20th and final major league season begins in Houston, the Yankees captain can be described as a leader, winner and offensive genius. For media members and fans, statistics and accolades tell the story of an all-time great shortstop.

During a rare season when the San Francisco Giants' starting rotation struggled as a whole, finishing with the seventh-highest ERA (4.37) in baseball in 2013, Buster Posey's decline in production went relatively unnoticed. 

Here we have the Kansas City Royals' 2014 starting rotation: James Shields, Jason Vargas, Yordano Ventura, Jeremy Guthrie and Bruce Chen. It's not particularly pretty, but I'll go to battle with it. Kansas City has a great chance to end a 29-year playoff drought this year and those five, for better or worse, are a crucial part of that chance.

In the long term, however, much more is in flux.

Great player. Bad move. Terrible contract.

The St. Louis Cardinals have always reveled in the underdog role.

They were the underdog against the Texas Rangers in the 2011 World Series. They were the underdog against the Los Angeles Dodgers in last year's playoffs. They’ve been the underdog against just about everyone in past Octobers.

Except for this year.

For young, emerging superstars, contracts and earning power often become a combination of risk, reward and timing. For Mike Trout, the stars aligned in the form of a $144.5 million contract extension from the Los Angeles Angels, setting the once-in-a-generation all-around baseball genius up for now and later.

Nobody likes to lose, even in spring training.

Sure, the games and the statistics don't technically count, and those who put too much stock into what goes on during the preseason typically find themselves disappointed during the regular season.

But that doesn't mean that we should completely discount the spring, which gives us the answers to some of the questions that we had heading into the exhibition season and presents us with winners and losers, both on the field and off of it.

Superstars make a fantasy team good, but everyone else makes it great. That's why nailing the middle and later rounds is just as important, if not more so, as nailing the first four or five rounds.