Small sample alert

[Ennder]

It really depends on the individual player/situation. McGehee is a great example. Some people kept believing all year Casey would "come around" and get close to his historical mean. The problem with that is even 1 1/2 seasons+ wasn't really enough to make his numbers valid.

 

Then you have guys who have pretty drastic swings from year to year. You can average those years out, but that really won't be very accurate. Because history has shown he'll either do better or worse than the average stats.

 

So, the more history you have and how consistent that history has been determines how small a sample size you need to make any sort of conclusions. For example: Ramirez and Braun you can almost guarantee their OPS will go up. Aoki, almost impossible to tell.

 

 

You are making a pretty huge assumption here that his one bad season disproves the 1.5 good seasons for no good reason. Pretty much flies in the face of your own argument. I expect McGehee is a .750 OPS type player who will have wild swings both ways but there is more proof that he is an .800 OPS guy than a .650 OPS one at this point.

[1992casey]

You might also consider the that Casey had mediocre hitting numbers in the minors and that his hot Major League hitting came at his peak age. Bill Hall was kind of like that.