Some teams begin planning for a season months and months ahead of time, perhaps using August and September in one summer to prepare for the following April. Staff meetings are held in October and November, all-day events that can absorb the first weeks of the offseason.

Many hours are spent evaluating free agents and trade targets, hundreds of players studied for every handful who are actually picked. Once the winter roster decisions are final, club executives will spend seven weeks at spring training assessing each player in their respective camps, judging, critiquing, until the final plans are made for the start of a season.

And within the first month, all of that planning can be blown up by a small sample size of pitches and at-bats, overwhelmed by the urgency to actually win games. Now, in early May, teams are aggressively effecting change and addressing roster sinkholes that have developed, most of them unexpected.

Here are some alterations that teams have already made, and other moves that could loom:

The White Sox: Chicago has eight losses, and four of those came in games started by veteran lefty John Danks. On Tuesday the White Sox cut him, and they will replace him in the rotation with Erik Johnson (at least initially; GM Rick Hahn called the situation "fluid.") Danks is in the final year of a deal that pays him $15.75 million, and presumably, he will clear waivers, because it's been six years since he had an ERA under 4 runs per game.

New York Yankees: The desperation is growing after another loss Tuesday, a defeat that dropped them to eight games under .500, 6½ games behind the AL East-leading Orioles.

Yes, Luis Severino failed to execute two simple plays while covering first base, but the offense has also struggled, and now the Yankees have probably lost Alex Rodriguez to a hamstring injury.

Presumably, the injury to Rodriguez could lead to more playing time for Aaron Hicks, in right field, with Carlos Beltran shifting to designated hitter. But the greatest concern at the moment is Chase Headley, a longtime third baseman who seems to be swinging without any authority or thump, a stunning decline. Among all hitters with enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title -- 196 players in all -- Headley ranks dead last in slugging percentage, at .147, by a margin of 57 points.