I am worried about baseball.
It is only three weeks, but there have been some concerning sights.
Attendance was an issue last year because of the economic downturn. MLB officials, though, actually exhaled because attendance wound up down just six percent. With some economic upticks, MLB’s early projections have been for an improvement this year.
But already there have been record-low attendances for stadiums in Baltimore, Seattle and Toronto. Winning does not improve the spectator bottom line in Tampa, and losing is going to imperil the numbers in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Houston, Arizona, Cleveland, Kansas City and elsewhere. The Mets certainly are staring at a dramatic dip.
And another issue that worries me feeds directly into attendance: Lack of competition. Three weeks does not a season make, but does anybody think the Twins and Cardinals are not going to run away in the two Central divisions? The Phillies have pitching problems, but so does every NL East team, and no divisional foe can boast Philadelphia’s lineup or confidence/toughness. So a fourth straight division title already feels like a lock.
Does anyone think the AL wild card is not coming out of the East? I still think the Red Sox have too much starting pitching not to win 90-plus games, but if this is a down year for Boston then the Yankees and Rays are going to spend the season jousting for who wins the division and wild card, with little threat of not making the playoffs. That would put only the two Western divisions and the NL wild card in much play.
I hope I am wrong and all eight playoff slots are in heated contention. But I suspect a lot of no-brainer playoff teams, in part because of a third early-season worry: Is it just me or is the quality of play not particularly good?
The Yankees, for example, are very good. But a big reason they have won is because the other teams have lost. It is as if the Yankees just play competently and wait for walks and mistakes to mount by their opponent. While watching at Citi Field or the MLB package on TV, I have been stunned by the number of poor teams and gross play.
In a phone conversation, commissioner Bud Selig said he would not let early play dictate his thoughts on division races or attendance, especially because Baseball Advanced Media projects attendance to be up seven percent from last year.
“I think you have to wait until Memorial Day to really get a good feel,” Selig said.
And, in general, early clues tend to be misleading. After all, Vernon Wells is not going to lead the majors in homers. So, again, I am hoping this is an overreaction to some early trends, but I do wonder if there is going to be few races and sloppy play, why should people spend to go watch games?
Here are other items that have caught my attention:
* Could Jim Edmonds and Andruw Jones be sprucing already interesting Hall of Fame resumes? In their primes, they put themselves into Cooperstown consideration as power-hitting, elite-fielding center fielders. Edmonds ranks fourth and Jones fifth in homers by center fielders, beyond only the historic trinity of Willie Mays, Ken Griffey and Mickey Mantle, and ahead of Joe DiMaggio and Duke Snider. Jones won 10 consecutive Gold Gloves (1998-2007) and Edmonds won eight in nine years (1997-2005).
Now they have been reborn, often as corner outfielders. Edmonds, 39, came out of a one-year retirement, won a roster spot, and now plays daily, hitting .306 with a 0.891 OPS. His homer Thursday was his first since Sept. 26, 2008, and also the 383rd of his career, moving him by Jim Rice on the all-time list. Rice is a Hall of Famer, and an argument can be made Edmonds is the far superior all-around player.
Jones is one of the few players hitting for the offensively inept White Sox (1.165 OPS, six homers in 44 at-bats).
* As badly as you may feel the Mets have messed up with personnel, how about the Cubs? They already have turned Kosuke Fukudome into a part-time player midway through a four-year $48 million contract. And in the last 10 days, Cubs officials threatened the playing time of the highest-paid player in team history, Alfonso Soriano (eight years, $136 million) while turning Carlos Zambrano, the highest-paid pitcher in team history (five years, $91.5 million), into a reliever.
Zambrano had to switch, in part, because the five-year, $10 million gamble to buy Jeff Samardzija out of his football career has not worked, and John Grabow has been a waste so far on his two-year, $7.5 million contract. And, right now, with his .127 average and 22 strikeouts, Aramis Ramirez (five years, $75 million) is among the majors’ least productive players.
So let’s put on our GM hats to try to help. Carlos Silva (2-0, 0.95) is among the few Cubs bright spots, especially considering that Chicago flipped headache Milton Bradley (another terrible Cubs contract) for him. The Dodgers desperately need, at the least, an innings-eating starter or else their woeful rotation severely jeopardizes the chance to three-peat as NL West champs.
Key Dodgers relievers Hong-Chih Kuo and Ronald Belisario recently came off the DL, which makes George Sherrill more expendable. He makes $4.5 million in 2010 and utilityman Jamey Carroll makes $1.55 million. Put them together and you have the $6 million the Cubs are paying Silva (Seattle is picking up $3.5 million of Silva’s pact this year and $5.5 million next season). As a free agent signed last offseason, Carroll must give permission to be traded before June 1.
The dollars are a wash, which is vital for the Dodgers, who are in penny-pinching mode with their owners in divorce proceedings. Los Angeles would be obligated to $8 million next year on Silva, but that would be almost totally negated by the $2.3 million owed Carroll in 2011 plus not re-signing Vicente Padilla, who is making $5.025 million this year.
The Cubs get Sherrill’s closer pedigree and, by dealing Silva, reopen the rotation spot for Zambrano. The Dodgers get a workhorse-type starter to aid a rotation that had a 5.14 ERA and five of 15 starts go fewer than five innings.
joel.sherman@nypost.com