Excerpt: "Cesar Cedeno"

"There's no sense quantifying any of these trades, because the tools we use to evaluate transactions break down in guesstimating the impact of any player over four weeks. I'll use Morneau to illustrate. The former Twins' first baseman, in his third season removed from the nasty concussion that ended his 2010 campaign, is batting .259/.315/.426 for a 102 OPS+ -- basically a league-average hitter. In August, Morneau batted .250/.293/.543 with nine homers, a stretch that probably helped generate interest in him. In July, Morneau -- the same guy -- hit .175/.266/.330. In June, he hit .298/.344/.476. Based on that, we can say that in any one month, Morneau could be productive or a black hole. Helpful. The Dodgers' new pinch-hitter? Much the same -- Young's OPS figures, by month: 829, 567, 839, 776, 629. Predicting what any player is going to hit next month is virtually impossible. Any player good enough to play in the big leagues is capable of going nuts for 30 days, but they're also capable of tanking for that same period of time. Variance swamps everything, especially when we're talking about the great middle of the baseball talent bell curve."