The best part of spring training, which opens for most teams by the end of this week, is the optimism. Every team’s best-case scenario is still in play. Whatever jersey a player wears, he can slip it on with pride and channel his inner Lloyd Christmas, the naïve dreamer from “Dumb and Dumber.”

A million-to-one shot? So you’re telling me there’s a chance!

Get ready for seven weeks of rosy forecasts around the major leagues. Every injury is healing well. Every prospect is the Next Big Thing. Every fading hitter has solved that pesky flaw in his swing. Maybe it will happen. Even if a front office has not designed a team to win, the players can always hope.

But remember this: For all that changes behind the scenes, every game still has a loser. It remains impossible for 30 teams to win at least 85 games and contend for a wild-card spot. Math is such a killjoy.

So as pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona, here is the column nobody wants to read: a doomsday scenario, just below the cheery surface, that could thwart each team’s high hopes.