2026 Exhibition Spring Games

[Longgone]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Hinch is not above riding a hot hand even if he knows the player will be gone by the ASB. Once the season starts, short term results are still results, you take 'em if you can get 'em. The great baseball debate has always been: are players streaky or is it just stochastic noise? The answer is 'Yes'.  The performance of the human machine is the combination of hundreds of factors that just might all align once in a guy's life for a week or month or 3 or even one season and then maybe never be seen again. Other guys will turn in year after year of consistency. OTOH, BaBIP buries a tremendous amount of true performance in its noise generation. But both things are true, always have been. And good teams take advantage of understanding it all.

It has nothing to do with "riding the hot hand", it's the exact same sweet swinging Kevin McGonigle, but facing different pitchers and circumstances and randomness that produces very different results in small samples. Baseball is a frustrating game where you can do everything right and still get negative results over the short term.