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April 27, 2007 Prospectus TodayOverreaction
April is annoying. I do some regular radio hits on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and a week ago when I did them (in St. Louis, Las Vegas, and College Station, Texas), the main topic of discussion was the Phillies. The Phils had started out 3-10, Charlie Manuel had just sent Brett Myers to the bullpen to the consternation of the world, and the calls for his head were growing shrill. The thing is, the Phillies weren't underperforming because of decisions Manuel had made; they were playing poorly because Chase Utley and Ryan Howard hadn't hit well, and because their bullpen had, for the most part, been disastrous. Nine days since that news cycle, the Phillies are 9-12, having won six of eight on the heels of a good run through the rotation, a nifty 30 AB stretch by Utley (.433/.469/.867), and good bullpen work in front of a shaky Tom Gordon. Now no one is calling for Manuel's head, no one is shoveling dirt on the Phils, and the chattering classes have moved on to fret in the Bronx. The Phillies are the exact same team they were nine days ago-with a flawed, top-heavy roster-they've just got a better record than they did at that point. Had they gone 6-2 and then 3-10, no one would have noticed. The results of two weeks of baseball mean absolutely nothing in the course of a season. Another team that has divided its first 20 games in an interesting manner is the San Francisco Giants. Once again, the first 12 games of the season caused an overreaction. I said on the air-I think it was the Las Vegas show-that although I had thought the Giants were a .500 team in the preseason, I now thought they'd struggle to reach even that mark. I made that comment 17 days into a 183-day season, and you'd think I'd know better. The Giants haven't lost since then, and now lead the NL West after an eight-game winning streak, including a sweep at Dodger Stadium. Barry Bonds went nova, and the pitchers allowed two home runs in 66 innings, which is how you give up just 19 runs in eight games while posting a 36/30 K/BB. The Giants aren't as bad as 4-8 or as good as 8-0. They are what they were leaving the Cactus League: a team with one clearly above-average hitter, a ball-in-play staff fronting a subpar defense, and far too many players who remember the heyday of Lee jeans and untied Adidas. That they struggled in the season's first four series shouldn't have caused me to go on the air and decide to change my opinion of them. They'll be on the fringe of the NL West and wild-card races all year long, their chances hinging heavily on how many innings they get from Tim Lincecum and how many ABs they get from Bonds. I'm not sure why I made these mistakes. For years, I've been pounding the idea that two weeks, four weeks, even eight weeks of baseball is as likely to be deceptive as it is informative, so much so that a number of you are likely clicking over to Hit List or Lies Damned Lies or Paris Hilton-you know who you are-rather than continue reading another rant about this. I'm writing about it again today as much as a self-flagellation exercise as anything else, I guess. I'm annoyed with myself for making stupid statements on the air, for falling into the instant-analysis trap, rather than sticking to my guns and repeating the mantra-it's just not enough time to reach conclusions. Doing radio is fun, and to be blunt, pretty important to both the business side of BP and Joe Sheehan. Doing it poorly, however, serves no one. Is there anything that can be gleaned from the season's first four weeks, any real information that might be useful in figuring out where we stand? I hesitate to dip my toe in these waters, but I will say that I've noticed the following things that I suspect may be useful going forward. The threat of confirmation bias is present in much of this, but I'm comfortable with saying…
Joe Sheehan is an author of Baseball Prospectus. 0 comments have been left for this article.
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