Welcome to Hardball. I am sitting in the pressroom at Yankee Stadium early on the morning of the opener and here a few quick thoughts on the two New York teams:

–You saw in the opener against St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter how much deeper the Met lineup looks if Moises Alou is healthy and near his career norm in production. The worry is about brittleness at this age. But if he plays 130 games the Met lineup will be even better than last year, which is really saying something.

–Jose Valentin is such a professional player. It is important to remember that he had hardly played any second base before last year, and now he is more than effective at the position. Again, like Alou, there is questions at his age about the long season. But he is a total pro.

–It is a few hours to the Devil Ray-Yankee first pitch and I will make my first prediction: Melky Cabrera will be at Triple-A as the regular center fielder by the middle of May. That is barring an injury that gets him regular playing time in the majors. Yankee officials keep insisting to me that Jason Giambi will play rarely at first base. If that is the case, Torre would have to out and out sit Giambi, Bobby Abreu, Johnny Damon or Hideki Matsui to get regular at-bats for Cabrera. Is he really going to sit each once a week to get Cabrera four starts?

Cabrera is not a traditional fourth outfielder. He is a kid and the Yanks envision him growing into a regular. While there is debate whether Cabrera has those skills. There is no debate that, at his age, he needs regular at-bats to stay fresh and productive. And I still do not see how he gets those regular at-bats. So rather than have him go stale on the bench, the Yanks will decide to have him play every day at Triple-A to keep him sharp in case of an injury or keep him alluring in case he is needed for a July trade.

Kevin Thompson would be the most obvious call up.