The Rise and Falls of Fredi Gonzalez
By Fred Owens
The Dog Days
The dog days of a season begin in August when the weather heats up and wear and tear starts to show on the players. It’s understandable that the people who take the field everyday will wear down at this point but why would a manager?
Within a specified range and barring serious injuries to multiple players, team with a stable roster have their ups and downs but should perform fairly evenly throughout the season. When a team starts to flag it’s the managers job to give them the rest they need and keep them focused on the task at hand. Herewith an example – well two actually where I’ve outlined the norm for the seasons. Not that for these charts I added the March game to the April numbers and the October game to the September numbers for all teams.
From 2011 through 2014 the Padres were not a good team. Their roster was a patchwork or players that were either past their prime or not yet ready. They had some good pitching but no great pitching. Here’s what their seasons looked like over that period.
The Pirates were a bad team in 2011 and a team in transition in 2012. From that point forward their talent level improved and so did their winning percentage.
Then there’s the Braves.
Looking at the charts you can see that the collapses aren’t outliers, just the ones bad enough to grab the headlines.