Snyder's Soapbox: Why it's important to understand baseball's butterfly effect

Welcome to Snyder's Soapbox! Here, I pontificate about matters related to Major League Baseball on a weekly basis. Some of the topics will be pressing matters, some might seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, and most will be somewhere in between. The good thing about this website is that it's free, and you are allowed to click away. If you stay, you'll get smarter, though. That's a money-back guarantee. Let's get to it.

Are you familiar with the concept of the "butterfly effect"? That is, generally speaking, one small change alters everything that follows. One of my poker friends used to point out that you could grab a deck of cards, move the top card to the bottom and change every hand that follows. He's right. It changes everything. 

In baseball, there is absolutely a butterfly effect -- something fans too often fail to realize. 

Picture a baserunner committing a blunder and getting thrown out on the basepaths. The next batter then hits a home run. Invariably, you'll hear someone say something like, "that should've been a two-run homer!" 

Well, no. Not so fast. The situation dictates how a pitcher works the hitter. How he approaches a hitter with the bases empty is different than with a runner on. We can't assume that the hitter would still hit a home run. Odds are, he wouldn't have. The butterfly effect!

This works when a player changes teams, too. We can't assume that a player would have performed the exact same way if he didn't change teams or went to a different team. For example, remember when Albert Pujols signed with the Angels prior to the 2012 season? And then he didn't hit a home run until his 29th game with the Angels? Yeah, you can't say that he would've gone 28 games without a home run to start the season with the Cardinals had he stayed put. There's something to be said for continuity and the lineup around the hitter. Pujols could well have put on a home run barrage had he re-signed with the Cardinals. We'll never know because we can't possibly know. 

We can apply it to this season. Kyle Tucker signed with the Dodgers and is having a lackluster season by his standards. You don't get to say, as a Cubs fan, "wow, we dodged a bullet with that one." Tucker could be setting the world on fire for the Cubs. We don't know! Apply this with Pete Alonso, had he stuck with the Mets, or Bo Bichette if he re-upped with the Blue Jays. 

It doesn't happen as often these days, due to replay, but bad calls are obviously included here, too.

It might seem like a silly thing on which to harp, but the point here is legitimate. Every single action on a baseball field changes everything that comes after. Do not be one of those offenders who assumes that home run was still gonna happen if the runner didn't get thrown out at third base.