The Paradoxical Effect

by David S. Cohen on Jul 27, 2007 10:36 AM EDT in News

Give a kid Benadryl, and most likely that kid will get sleepy. But, for a very very small number of kids, there's a paradoxical effect. Give that kid Benadryl, and that kid will get jazzed up, as if you gave the kid meth. It's called a paradoxical effect, in medical jargon.

Take away one of a team's star players, and you'd expect that team to do worse. But, for the Phillies, there's been some sort of paradoxical effect going on in the past two years whenever they've lost a star player. Check out this chart:

Player	Dates Out	Without Player	With Player
Aaron Rowand	5/11 - 5/26/06; 8/22 - 10/1/06	29-23 (.558)	56-54 (.509)
Bobby Abreu	7/29 - 10/1/06	38-23 (.623)	47-54 (.465)
Tom Gordon	5/2 - 7/16/07	34-32 (.515)	18-17 (.514)
Ryan Howard	5/11 - 5/23/07	8-4 (.667)	44-45 (.494)
Brett Myers	since 5/24/07	29-26 (.527)	23-23 (.500)
Freddy Garcia	since 6/8/07	21-19 (.525)	31-30 (.508)

By my recollection, this is the list of important Phillies who have missed time over the last two seasons. All but Abreu were because of injury. Abreu, of course, was traded at the trade deadline last year.

As is apparent (and completely paradoxical) from comparing the last two columns of the chart, the Phillies as a team have improved their play when each of these guys has been away from the team. It ranges from the miniscule (one game difference with Gordon out) to the huge (when Abreu and Howard were out).

I would think that much of the credit here goes to Charlie Manuel in keeping his team focused and playing well despite adversity. Of course, the other players deserve credit as well.

In the wake of Chase Utley's injury yesterday, we have to hope the Phillies' version of the paradoxical effect continues.

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Comments

Re: The Paradoxical Effect

Hey, in that case I'll bet if we sat all our best players at the same time, we'd win every game! :P

The real shame here is that Utley legitimately could have won an MVP this year, and now that hope is gone. Who knows if he'll ever have another season like this one? You'd think he would, but you never know.

by taco pal on Jul 27, 2007 12:42 PM EDT reply actions

Re: The Paradoxical Effect

In several of these cases, the player had been trying to play hurt before going on the DL and was actually hurting, not helping the team: Garcia, Howard, Gordon. That's a rational reason for thinking that a team might do better without a particular player.

But making this whole exercise kind of dubious is the fact that the DL stints you've listed here all overlap with some other DL stint. For that reason among many, I don't think you've exactly isolated for anything.

by dog of the south on Jul 27, 2007 12:58 PM EDT reply actions

Re: The Paradoxical Effect

I'm not claiming to have isolated anything here. I'd have to look at who and where the team played before and during, as well as who was on the team at the time and how they were playing.

It's more of an argument that a) we've lost key players before and survived, so maybe it'll happen again and b) the team doesn't quit. But, we've seen that about Manuel's teams in other respects (late inning performance), so this shouldn't be major news about injuries either.

by David S. Cohen on Jul 27, 2007 4:09 PM EDT up reply actions