*Let me preface this by letting everyone who didn't already know that I am a Mets fan.

    I had tickets to tonight's game at Shea Stadium between the Mets and the Reds. The weather in New York City has been rainy, windy and basically hideous since early this morning; for much of the day, there was a debate between myself and my fiancee as to what our course of action would be if the Mets actually tried to play tonight's game. Repeated glances out the window and our experiences when we ran several errands today led us to the conclusion that there was no logical way the Mets would even consider playing this game tonight.
    It is my understanding that the decision as to whether or not to attempt to start the game lies in the hands of the home team until the lineup cards are exchanged at home plate; at that point, the game belongs to the umpiring crew. (Any reader can correct me if I'm wrong.) The weather predicated that the game should have been canceled by 4:00 at the earliest and 5:00 at the latest. I continually called the "RAIN" number on the back of the ticket to listen to the same recorded message again and again telling me that tonight's game between the Mets and the Reds was scheduled to be played at 7:10 PM. It then suggested that I listen to 66 WFAN in New York for continuous updates regarding the game. I did so, still wondering how they were even considering starting a game like this when every weather report was suggesting that the rain was going to continue (along with strong winds and cold air) until past midnight.
    On The Mike and the Mad Dog radio show, hosts Mike Francesa and Christopher Russo reacted with thinly disguised incredulity that the Mets were going forward with the farce of trying to play the game given the circumstances. Francesa postulated (correctly in my view) that the Mets didn't want to have to play a split doubleheader; lose the gate for tonight's game and risk a diminished number of fans attending the first or second half of said doubleheader. (I even tried to call WFAN to ask them if they had any idea as to what the Mets were planning; when there was no busy signal, the phone rang, rang and rang some more, leading me to wonder where the interns were; aren't they there to answer the phones?) The Mets self-centered greed in this situation made me embarrassed to be a fan of the team.
    Where is the fan-friendliness that is supposed to be present? Where is the concern? Was it necessary to even make it a consideration for people who had paid for their tickets to drive or take mass transit all the way out to Shea Stadium to sit in the rain for several hours despite the absurdity of the idea given the weather situation? I like to think I'm a bright enough guy and my fiancee is extremely smart, but we were sitting here considering whether or not to take the drive on the rain-soaked Gowanus Expressway, along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, over the Kocziusko Bridge and to Shea Stadium to pay for parking to receive the privilege of sitting with the other Mets fans who wanted to watch their team play, hear that first pitch was scheduled for 8:30 PM, then suddenly be told that the game was postponed and tickets would be honored for the second game of a split doubleheader scheduled for Saturday night. It was a decision that I did not take lightly when we chose not to go.
    Never mind the money that would have been spent for the ride, parking and whatever ridiculously overpriced food items a fan would have purchased (without a refund or even a "thanks for coming"); it was literally dangerous to be out on the road tonight with the weather as inclement as it's been. Do they even think of their fans in a situation such as this? There was the very real possibility that I would have to kiss the money I spent on the tickets to see my team go flying out the window, completely wasted, because the Mets were so adamant of playing tonight's game regardless of the forecast or ancillary occurrences that may happen due to the resistance to doing what was right and canceling the game at a decent time so people wouldn't have been put in that position. Other teams would have given rain checks to fans that didn't come to the game even if the game was played; it saddens me to wonder whether the Mets would have done a similar thing for their fans, but given the disgusting display of selfishness in forcing some fans to come to the park when the front office had to know that getting the game in was exceedingly unlikely is selfish, corporate greed at its worst. It's offensive that they even went to such lengths for one game over the comfort and safety of their fans; but they did and the entire Mets organization should be ashamed.

    Not only was Kason Gabbard's pitch to Richie Sexson (which Sexson claimed was at his head) not even close to hitting him, but the 6'8" Sexson charged the mound----ESPN Link----and instead of going at Gabbard with his fists, decided to throw his helmet at the pitcher first? Is he kidding? 

• Yankees 6-Indians 3:

    David Dellucci wasn't all that thrilled with Joba Chamberlain's emotional reaction after the strikeout that ended the eighth inning----NY Times Story----and he has a point. Dellucci didn't raise his fist and start gyrating around the bases after what turned out to be the game winning homer on Tuesday, so he's right when he says that his homer was far more important in winning the game than Chamberlain's "hold" and that Chamberlain's fist pumping and screaming was out of line. If Chamberlain wants to be so overt in his emotions, it's fine as long as he accepts that he's got to quietly take it if he gets beat and the hitters do the same thing. If he behaves like Josh Beckett has in the past, think nothing of pumping his fist and screaming and then takes offense when it's done to him, then he's nothing more than a baby who can dish it out, but not take it.

• Braves 5-Padres 4:

     I haven't been shy in crowing about how I expected the Padres to have a bad year, but I didn't think they'd be this bad. Manager Bud Black (left) doesn't look like he knows what to do next, and it's not really his fault. In the Moneyball system, if managers are seen as functionaries when the team plays well, they shouldn't receive blame when things go badly. There are teams that have gotten off to bad starts, but should wait things out because of their division and personnel (the Tigers for example); but the Padres are just awful. It's time to clean out the house.

•  Orioles 4-Royals 1:

    I don't want to jinx it by mentioning it aloud, but is Daniel Cabrera finally putting everything together? He was wobbly in his first two starts, but he's been excellent since and with all of that talent, he was worth the struggle to try and straighten out and he may actually be getting it-----finally, maybe(?).
    Even though he lost, Luke Hochevar is going to be a star. He keeps the ball down with pitches that are almost impossible to hit and if he hits the corners consistently as he did a few times last night, he's going to be a devastating, Roy Halladay-type force at the top of the Royals rotation.

• Did Buzzie Bavasi's passing buy Bill Bavasi some time as Mariners GM?

    I don't want to sound like a ghoul, but given the shaky ground Mariners GM Bill Bavasi has been on for the past two years and the bad start the Mariners have undergone, it's a legitimate question to wonder how long he's going to have before he's shown the door in Seattle. Since Buzzie Bavasi passed away last week, it may have saved his son's job for the time being. It would take an utter animal to fire a guy right after a family tragedy; team president Chuck Armstrong is not the kind of guy to do something like that, so the Mariners players probably have at least until the All Star break to save their GM's job. That being said, the Mariners are a team with a high payroll ($117 million) and high expectations and are staggering along with a 14-22 record.
    One name I would keep in mind as a replacement would be the decried former GM of the Red Sox and Expos, Dan Duquette. His image has been rehabilitated by the Roger Clemens/PED allegations and his work as the Red Sox GM is being rightfully seen in a positive light.

    Please check out my book  The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.

    Mark Mulder's physical setback, in addition to his performance in his rehab stint in Triple A, doesn't bode well for what, if anything the Cardinals are going to get if and when he manages to return. Mulder's latest injury, described as a strain in his surgically repaired rotator cuff, is a bad sign for a pitcher who has had nothing but shoulder problems over the past two seasons and is indicative of a long road back to even competing on a big league mound, let alone contributing seriously to the Cardinals surprising leap into first place.
    In attempting to return from the initial surgery last season, Mulder was terrible before undergoing more surgery; he has been rehabbing in the minors this season, was looking okay for the first four games in A and Double A, and was awful in two starts for Triple A Memphis before this latest setback. It is starting to appear as if the Cardinals had better prepare not to have Mulder at all for now and possibly ever. If a pitcher has to choose which part of his arm to injure, he'd probably be better served to require Tommy John surgery over rotator cuff surgery. The number of pitchers who have had and been unable to return from rotator cuff surgery is long and ominous, while Tommy John surgery has become so routine that it's not even seen as a big deal anymore. Alex Fernandez is one pitcher of recent memory who had rotator cuff surgery, came back, got hurt again and had to retire at age 30. Given Mulder's repeated setbacks and poor performance, it's hard to imagine him returning to big league competition and providing anything close to what the Cardinals expected when they traded for him.

    Please check out and purchase my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on Amazon.com and BN.com. 

• Mets 12-Dodgers 1:

    This game was a prime example of what's so irritating about the Mets; they'll knock around one of the best pitchers in baseball in Brad Penny (granted, they always knock Penny around), then they'll lose to a bunch of mediocre teams with mediocre to weak players. And they won't just lose, they'll embarrass themselves as they did last Wednesday against the Pirates.
    Truth be told, this recap was intended to discuss how Penny isn't the sharpest knife in the box and proved it by hitting Ryan Church to lead off the fifth inning after John Maine had knocked Jeff Kent down earlier in the game. The pitch to Kent looked completely unintentional and I was under the mistaken impression that Church was hit to lead off the inning which opened the floodgates for a six run outburst to blow the game open. Church was the second hitter after Carlos Beltran had grounded out; Endy Chavez struck out after Church was hit; the entire rally occurred with two outs. It would've been a stupid thing to do to hit a guy to lead off the inning even trailing by five runs and Penny would've heard about it from manager Joe Torre, but he retaliated in a smarter fashion even though it was probably unwarranted. A 5-0 deficit could easily be turned into 5-2 or 5-3 against the starter and with the Mets corps of late-inning arsonists in the bullpen, few leads are safe.

• Rangers 2-Mariners 0:

     Like Oliver Perez, Vicente Padilla is an immensely talented pitcher who could induce the most docile manager or pitching coach to want to strangle him. When he was a free agent after a 15-10 campaign in 2006, the Rangers had little choice but to re-sign him to the contract they did even though there was every possibility that he was either going to get hurt, be terrible, or both. (He was both last year.) Now, he's back to making everyone shake their heads wondering what would happen if he were able to maintain his health and focus for an entire season.
    Padilla's been nothing short of brilliant this season and with only the remainder of this year and next on his contract; the dearth and desperation of and for starting pitching around the majors; and the Rangers unlikelihood to contend this and probably next year, they should start trying to trade Padilla now before he implodes. If I were team president Nolan Ryan, I would seriously consider making the move and have some established talent evaluators in the Rangers system pick certain players from the offers the Rangers would receive for Padilla and deal him before something----who knows what?----sabotages Padilla yet again.

• Tigers 10-Red Sox 9:

     I watched the ninth inning of this game and after Julio Lugo made that error, I knew that the Tigers were going to come back and win. I haven't given Lugo too hard a time this season because he's been hitting well, but defensively he's made ten errors already and that's something that's going to cost more games over the course of a season than a guy like Lugo's going to help the Red Sox win with his offense. The whole idea of signing Lugo was that he was an offensive upgrade over Alex Gonzalez and the Red Sox had such a large group of fly ball pitchers that Lugo's defensive liabilities would be negligible. They won the World Series last year, so it didn't matter all that much that his offense was worse than that of Gonzalez and his defense was as bad as expected; the Red Sox they look like the class of the AL East this year, so it won't be a big problem during the season, but they're going to need someone to vacuum balls up during the playoffs and Lugo is a terror in the field.
    I'd love to have overheard what was said in private by Jonathan Papelbon after the game (probably something like: "That <bleeper> couldn't catch a cold standing buck naked in <bleeping> Alaska," or some other pithy assessment of Lugo's glove work.) The politically correct stuff is saved for the media; the truth is grumbled into cell phones to confidants after the games; that's where the juicy stuff lies.

• Twins 13-White Sox 1:

     I should've mentioned this yesterday, but why was Nick Swisher even in center field as Gavin Floyd tried to complete his no-hitter on Tuesday night? Isn't Brian Anderson supposed to be a defensive whiz out there? Shouldn't Swisher, below adequate in center field despite maximum effort, have been removed for defensive purposes? It wasn't like they were in a tight game; it was 7-1.
    As for this game, as gutty as Mark Buehrle is, it doesn't do much good if he's going to get pummeled every third start. I have to say that Octavio Dotel's stuff looks dominating, but stuff has never been Dotel's problem; his problem is that he's always getting hurt.
    With the Twins, Livan Hernandez is proving that if a pitcher throws strikes, has fielders behind him who catch the ball and keeps his team in the game, he's going to get his wins. I wouldn't expect such brilliance over the course of the season, but I don't understand why more teams weren't interested in Hernandez as more than a desperation backup plan; there's value in guys who go out to the mound every fifth day and are willing to throw 150 pitches to help their team. And before everyone gets crazy over the "tools" of Carlos Gomez, just wait until he runs into a slump and is still swinging wildly at the first or second pitch even if it's so far over his head that the catcher has to leap for it. His plate discipline is atrocious and doesn't appear to be getting any better, cycle or not.

• Braves 5-Padres 2:

    It's no crime to be shut down by Tim Hudson, but hitting is contagious and the Padres need someone susceptible to the disease. Ten games out of first place in early May wouldn't be that big of a problem for a team with a roster full of players who have a history of success and aren't entering the land of geriatric baseball players, but the Padres have no margin for error and after another month of this, they might start sending out circulars to clear out their warehouse (which is past it's sell-by date).

    Please check out and purchase my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide, also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.

• Screwing Up Spring Training Basics:

    It's amazing how many routine plays that are repeated in torturous spring training drills are being screwed up so routinely. Last night, Dodgers starter Hiroki Kuroda threw a ball to third to try and get the lead runner on a bunt play and pulled the Blake DeWitt off the base making everyone safe; on Sunday, Conor Jackson threw a ball into left field trying to start a 3-6-3 double play; again and again we see pitchers throw the ball off line to second base after inducing a comebacker for a routine double play; last week, in that embarrassing, mistake-filled game against the Pirates, the Mets made a debacle of a simple rundown play. It would be one thing if these were unusual plays that rarely come up during a game, but these are the exact things that are worked on over and over again in spring training. Bunt plays are practiced; double plays are replicated; pickoffs and rundowns are simulated----and still big league players are looking like something out of The Naked Gun. What's so hard about throwing a ball directly to the base on a comebacker? The pitcher is supposed to turn and fire directly to the base and it's the responsibility of the designated middle infielder to cover the base; what's so hard?
    It's this attention to fundamentals that allowed teams managed by the likes of Earl Weaver, Billy Martin, Buck Showalter, Joe Torre, Tony La Russa and Bobby Cox to win so consistently. If the manager isn't paying the proper attention to these relatively straightforward plays and making sure the intricacies are drilled in, how are they expecting the players to get them right when the time comes?

• Eaton away at the Phillies chances to win:

     As a rule, I avoid using economics terms when discussing baseball because I find the trend incredibly annoying and pretentious, but with Adam Eaton, I find it to be appropriate because the pitcher has become the epitome of the "sunk cost". There's nothing that can be done about his contract for which he's making an average of $8 million for this year and next, so the Phillies should either yank him from the rotation or make him the long man out of the bullpen because he is non-competitive in the games he starts.
    After last year's woeful campaign, were the Phillies expecting anything more than what he's given them so far this season? He'll pitch perhaps five, maybe six innings; walk a few guys; give up a homer; and leave the game having allowed at least three runs. Last night, he walked the opposing pitcher, Diamondbacks starter Randy Johnson, on four pitches with the bases loaded. It's not as if Eaton's providing anything of value; the Phillies could assuredly find someone on the waiver wire to pitch more competently than Eaton has since joining the Phillies, so how much longer are they going to continue trotting him out there? My guess is when (and if) Kris Benson is ready to join the big league club, that'll be it for Eaton in the Phillies rotation and it won't be a moment too soon.

     Please check out and purchase my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.

• Max Scherzer's Motion and Future:

    I was interested to get my first look at Diamondbacks pitching prospect Max Scherzer last night and came away with some impressions. Keith Law had written that Scherzer should stay in the bullpen rather than become a starter----Law Blog 4/30----for various reasons. (I hadn't read Law's blog until about five minutes ago.) I think that the basic conclusion of Law is correct, but for different reasons. I didn't think that Scherzer's motion was something to be overly concerned about. There's a slight recoil at the conclusion over a stiff front leg (he reminded me of Jason Isringhausen when he came to the big leagues as a starter with the Mets), but it doesn't appear anywhere nearly as stressful as that of Jake Peavy or even Joba Chamberlain. Scherzer does have a more prominent than usual hip turn as he lifts his leg (sort of like Mariano Rivera), which will increase the torque as he delivers; the combination of the flaws might cause problems in the future; but I'm beginning  to think----with the likes of Peavy going strong and other pitchers like the retired Steve Karsay (whose motion was directly out of the handbook) or someone like John Smoltz (another flawless motion and repeated arm injuries)----that the health of a pitcher is a combination of genetics and luck.
     Scherzer's stuff at this point probably translates better to the bullpen. While I was watching, his fastball fluctuated between 92 and 96; his changeup was very good and he was getting it over the plate; but his slider was coming in at about ten miles slower than the fastball (making me think it's more of a slurve) and he was having trouble throwing it for strikes; in fact, it looked more like a "show-me" pitch to let the hitters know he had it than something to get them out. As a reliever, he'll be able to get away with being a fastball-changeup guy, but as a starter, a two pitch pitcher is going to have problems. This was the first time I saw him, so maybe his breaking stuff is better than it looked last night, but with his fastball and changeup, he could be a shutdown reliever a la Chamberlain in the late innings. He threw some fastballs on the corners and at the knees that were literally unhittable. The Diamondbacks aren't currently in a position where they're going to need to force feed Scherzer a spot in the starting rotation, so the bullpen would be a better place for him to learn in the big leagues and create a dominant bullpen. In the foreseeable future (2008), he's probably better off in the bullpen.

• Blue Jays 1-White Sox 0:

    The Blue Jays still can't score, but are winning because they're getting great pitching and (in case anyone hadn't noticed) are using a genuine closer by committee system with four different pitchers having recorded saves so far this year. Whether they're doing this to slowly work the recovering B.J. Ryan back into the role, because Jeremy Accardo has had a couple of bad games, or because it's a strategic decision will be revealed in the coming months. The difference between the Blue Jays using the strategy over the long term and the Red Sox attempts to use a closer by committee is that the Blue Jays have at least two guys who are genuine closers and the Red Sox didn't have one in 2003. On paper, it's always been a good idea, but has rarely worked in practice especially in the era of "defined roles". I'm interested to see if it works long term.
    The White Sox are spiraling and manager Ozzie Guillen is beginning another meltdown, which is a bad sign in May. In looking beneath Guillen's well-earned image of an uncensored raving lunatic, his comments really weren't out of line. If someone like Jim Leyland had said the things Guillen said (clipped from ESPN.com), no one would bat an eyelash; it would be a manager defending his team. Here are the quotes:    

    "Right now everyone in Chicago is making lineups -- 'Call up this guy, call up that guy.' ... If we had 50 people allowed on the roster, we could do that. That's what ticks me off about Chicago fans and Chicago media: They forget pretty quickly. A couple of days ago we were the [bleeping] best [stuff] in town. Now we're [bleep],"
   
    "We won it a couple years ago, and we're horse[bleep],"
   
    "The Cubs haven't won in [100] years, and they're the [bleeping] best. [Bleep] it, we're good. [Bleep] everybody. We're horse[bleep], and we're going to be horse[bleep] the rest of our lives, no matter how many World Series we win.

"We are the [bleep] of Chicago. We're the Chicago [bleep]. We have the worst owner [Jerry Reinsdorf]. The guy's got seven [bleeping] rings, and he's the [bleeping] horse[bleep] owner."

    "How about the Cubs celebrating that Lee Elia bull[bleep]? How many times do I curse people out? I will make a lot of money with my [stuff]. I have to keep going because in the future Ozzie will need money, and I can say, 'Here, give me money, here's the 10-year anniversary of my time I called [Jay] Mariotti stuff and the time I went on the radio and cursed out Mike North,'"

    Guillen, as psychotic as he sometimes seems, does have a point with this rant. He is held to a different standard and while it's due to his own lunacy, it gets lost in the morass of his other rants and number of <bleeps> that are present within the soliloquy. People don't appreciate the fact that it was the White Sox that brought a baseball championship to Chicago before the beloved Cubs. That being said, it's a terrible sign for the White Sox that they're losing so frequently and at the first sign of trouble Guillen is already starting another meltdown.

• Angels 4-Royals 0:

    It has to be seen as a little bit more than pure luck that the Angels have been able to overcome the injuries to John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, slot Ervin Santana and Joe Saunders into their rotation and have both pitchers start the season at 6-0. Branch Rickey once said, "Luck is the residue of design" and with no team is that proven in a more effective way than in the organization of the Los Angeles Angels.

    Please check out my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.

  

   

• Clemens's Unraveling Life:

    Roger Clemens didn't approach the level of Kobe Bryant in terms of silliness with his press release/public apology, but he did manage to enter the Bill Clinton level of ambiguity while acknowledging "mistakes" in his personal life. When he was on Mike and Mike in the Morning last week, Peter Gammons said something very insightful about Clemens as he dismissed the idea of Clemens receiving bad advice and postulated that Clemens just doesn't listen to anyone who gives him what would likely be good advice. The best advice regarding everything that's been revealed in the past six months would have been to keep his mouth shut; but Clemens's behavior, from his steadfast denials to the allegations in the Mitchell Report; to the interview with Mike Wallace; to the appearance in front of congress; to this latest press conference indicate someone who is trying to take his gunslinger approach from it's appropriate place on the field and transferring it to other venues and it's not even coming close to working.

•  Red Sox 7-Rays 3:

    This doesn't look like a similar type of dominant, inevitable roll to the playoffs for the Red Sox as it was last season, but more of a methodical chopping away at their opponents. With two young, inexperienced starting pitchers in Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz and David Ortiz still trying to bust out, there's less of an aura about the team; but that can be a positive thing. Young players like Lester, Buchholz and Jacoby Ellsbury are probably better off in the playoffs having had that experience if the regular season wasn't a cakewalk. They've become the obvious class of the division. Unless he's playing with some undisclosed injury, Ortiz is going to start hitting eventually.

• Yankees Demote Ian Kennedy:

    It's likely more pronounced since I'm in New York and hear and see it first hand, but there's an inherent attempt to portray the Yankees as "smarter" than other teams, but the principles that have been in place for all of baseball history seem to trump any kind of new discoveries or different strategies in procuring and developing players. The number of young pitchers who arrive in the major leagues and automatically have grand success is quite small. For every Dwight Gooden there are numerous young pitchers who arrive amid great fanfare and cannot handle the big leagues immediately. Sometimes they make it to the majors, fail, go back to the minors and come back to be successful big leaguers; other times they make a big splash, receive great press and accolades, and suddenly run into reality and have to relearn their craft in a less pressurized atmosphere. Simply because Ian Kennedy has been sent to the minors and was awful over the first month of the season doesn't mean his career isn't going to be a successful one. He does need to refine his mental approach in the minor leagues and regain his confidence, which must be shot at this point; there must also be a level of embarrassment that he has to overcome.
    In regards to the self-aggrandizing atmosphere around the Yankees, we hear it again and again with their "finds". Guys like Brian Bruney, Edwar Ramirez and now Chad Moeller are considered to be stunning discoveries of the Yankees brilliant talent evaluators, but Bruney, despite his ability, has done little since joining the team; Ramirez is a back of the bullpen journeyman; and Moeller is a catcher who is a defensive specialist who happened to have a hot streak at the plate and benefited from Jorge Posada's injury. By season's end, his numbers at the plate will be back to his career norms, and that ain't good. Occasionally a star can be uncovered when scouring the bargain bins, but it's not as prevalent as Yankees apologists try to portray it. (Mets apologists have done the same thing with Angel Pagan and Endy Chavez suggesting that the team would be better off with those players in left field over Moises Alou; other teams do it as well and it ignores reality and history.)

     Speaking of Kennedy, here's a quote from my book:

    Ian Kennedy is the third of the Yankees young starters and the one that the team was most willing to trade in deals for a veteran starter the likes of Santana or Haren. I don't think Kennedy is as good as the other two starters and is the most likely to either not make the team out of spring training, or make the team, get pounded and sent back down. He looks to be a finesse pitcher who has been built up by the Yankee propaganda machine and apparently other organizations feel the same way with their reluctance to take him as the centerpiece of any deal for one of their veteran starters.

     Please check out and purchase the book----The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.

    I like Newsday's Ken Davidoff, but this looks somewhat odd re: the Marlins/Joe Girardi----Column Dated 5/4; and Prince Of New York Blog 5/3. All together now: I don't mind anyone using my writing as a jumping off point for their own stuff, but at least give me some credit so I can sell some BOOOOOOOKS!!!!

    Speaking of which, check out and purchase my book The Prince Of New York's 2008 Baseball Guide also available on Amazon.com and BN.com.

    The caveat provided by and for struggling and surging teams has been, "it's early"; but it's getting to the point where it's not so early anymore and the calendar is turning. (Julian Day-"The Calendar Man" from Batman: The Long Halloween----right.) Without even realizing it, 20% of the season is just about gone and certain teams are going to find themselves with serious decisions to make for the futures of their teams. The next 15-20 games should indicate which teams should be adding, which should be subtracting and which should hold their fire. (Certain teams----the Yankees, Red Sox and Tigers----are going to consider themselves automatic "add" teams whether they're in playoff position or not, so they're unmentioned.) Here are the teams for whom the next three weeks will go a long way into determining their future:

• Chicago White Sox:

    The White Sox were one of my picks to collapse to the bottom of the AL Central, but they capitalized on a series of weak and/or scuffling teams to get off to a decent start; they've fallen to .500 at 14-14 and a clear judgment may not be possible until they run into the Red Sox, resurgent Tigers and Dodgers. They are going to be playing the Mariners and Angels in the coming weeks, so that could be an indicator of whether they're going to stay in the race. They have some assets on their roster that other teams could use. Jose Contreras has been pretty good so far this season; they have a leader type who could do with a change of scenery like Paul Konerko; Joe Crede and Orlando Cabrera are impending free agents; and there's Jim Thome, who would slide neatly into the Angels lineup.

• Oakland Athletics:

    The A's are going to be playing the Rays, Braves, Red Sox and Blue Jays in May; then they've got the Tigers, Angels and Yankees all in a row; if they stay where they are and around the top of the standings in the AL West, then GM Billy Beane will consider adding to try and win; if not, Joe Blanton and (if he can ever get out on the mound) Rich Harden will be held up for auction.

• New York Mets:

    The only question for the Mets will be when they get their players back from injury is what the upper management is going to do with manager Willie Randolph if they continue the trend of win three, lose two, win two lose three. The lineup is intact (as of this writing) with the return of Moises Alou, so they shouldn't have a problem scoring runs. They're playing the Dodgers, Braves, Rockies and Yankees over the next month, so a pretty clear picture should present itself by the end of May.

• St. Louis Cardinals:

    The first place Cardinals are expecting both Mark Mulder and Chris Carpenter back, along with Matt Clement eventually, so they won't have to go outside the organization to get pitching. They do need a bat if they want to contend realistically and one name I would keep an eye on if the Rockies continue their freefall is Matt Holliday. The Cardinals schedule isn't much more difficult than it's been over the first month aside with a few games against the Dodgers and Brewers. They should maintain their position at or around the top of the division until mid-to-late-June, when they run into the Phillies, Red Sox and Tigers.

• Cincinnati Reds:

    With the number of young pitchers they have in their organization, the way Bronson Arroyo is struggling and the league-wide need for arms, new GM Walt Jocketty may hold Arroyo up for auction and hope that both the Yankees and Red Sox get involved and try to one-up one another not only to get Arroyo, but to keep him away from the other. The Reds schedule is very rough over the next month with the Cubs, Mets, Dodgers, Braves and Padres among others on the docket and it doesn't get any easier all the way up through to the All Star break.

• San Diego Padres:

    They're old and slow; they can't hit and may have to make some drastic changes given the advanced age of prominent members of the pitching staff. One thing the Padres have never been is afraid to trade or at least discuss big names. Their schedule is somewhat difficult over the next month. They play the Rockies, Braves, Cubs, Cardinals and Mariners and will probably make aggressive decisions sooner rather than later. I don't know if Greg Maddux has a no-trade clause in his contract, but if he doesn't I'm sure he has a "gentleman's agreement" that the Padres won't send him somewhere he doesn't want to go. I get the feeling that this is likely Maddux's last year (although he could continue pitching the way he does for a couple of more years); one thing I can definitely see happening is Maddux back to the Braves to end his career as part of the aged big three along with John Smoltz and Tom Glavine for one more run. It probably wouldn't take more than a couple of mid-level prospects to get him.
    Chris Young's inability to prove himself to be durable enough to provide more than 180 innings might prompt the Padres to make him available and he would probably yield a big return in a trade; and their veteran acquisitions like Jim Edmonds and Tad Iguchi are on one-year contracts, so they would be attractive to contending teams who are seeking experienced help.

• Colorado Rockies:

     It's beginning to look like that unlikely winning streak and late season run to the World Series might have been a freaky accident of circumstance; with Troy Tulowitzki out until July (at least), they can probably forget about catching the Diamondbacks and the Dodgers are starting to look like they're taking off as well. Matt Holliday is signed through 2009,and is represented by Scott Boras, so a hometown discount doesn't look like it's in the cards for the Rockies. Would it be such a shock to see them hold up Holliday for auction to acquire some pitching? Half the teams in baseball would love to get their hands on Holliday and the Rockies are playing the Cardinals, Padres, Cubs, Mets and Phillies over the next month. Their course of action should be clear by then.

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