Small sample size carries weight in July in a way it does not the rest of the baseball season, as teams get inspired -- or spooked -- by a couple of really good or really bad games leading up to the trade deadline.
An evaluator told a story recently about how one of his players in the midst of a good season struggled one day, and the phone calls from other teams with expressions of trade interest stopped. As if someone had turned off a light switch.
Everybody is looking to land the right player at the exact right time, and there could be no better example of this than in the market for starting pitching, which is generally regarded by executives as thin, lacking in high-end options.