The Problem with Early Season Story Lines – 2 Weeks Isn’t Long Enough to Tell a Full Story

Not to beat a dead horse, but a mere 3 weeks into the season, many of the early season story lines have already begun correcting themselves.  Sure, everyone appreciates a great storyline, an underdog overachieving, the promise of youngsters out performing the veterans.  Unfortunately, in baseball, 10 games isn’t long enough to tell the whole story.

As recently as one week ago the biggest story in baseball was the amazingly hot start of the Marlins.  After their 11-1 start the blogosphere and major media alike were writing about the great young Marlins’ pitching staff taking the Fish to a World Series title.  Well, a mere one week later, the Marlins find their record at 11-7, in the midst of a 6 game losing streak.  As chronicled in my piece last week, the Marlins were certainly helped by their soft early schedule, and now have come back to Earth.  Does this mean they are doomed to finish in the 70-80 wins range?  Certainly not.  The young pitchers are still greatly talented and could very well lead the Marlins to 80-88 wins.  It just means that 6 game winning streaks are not uncommon in baseball.  Just because they occur at the start of a season should not lead one to draw different conclusions than if they occur in the dog-days of summer.

Thanks to two thrilling wins over the Yankees the last two nights, the Red Sox have quietly pieced together a 9 game winning streak, after their 2-6 start.  Had the Red Sox started the season with a 9-0 record, I can only imagine the number of SportsCenter segments where Steve Phillips claims to be sure this Red Sox team is the best ever assembled and could easily win 110 games this season.  Thankfully, they started 2-6 and we don’t have to be subject to such pointless banter.

Tied to the Marlins 11-1 start was the great play of Emilio Bonifacio.   Amongst numerous other sites, Bonifacio’s break out season were discussed by Marlins Die-Hards with many sites dreaming of him keeping up his great play for the full season.  Since April 15th Emilio has seen his average drop from .429 to .270 as he has gone 1-21 since.   Had he started the season 1-21, many pundits would be questioning whether deserved to be the starting 3B for a MLB team.  He most certainly won’t average under .100 the rest of the season, but the theme continues – 2 weeks just isn’t long enough to develop any substantive story lines or to come to any difinitive conlcusions.  Between unbalanced early season schedules and small sample sizes, 15 games just isn’t enough.

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