Brilliance in small samples can be intoxicating. Case in point: in a poll conducted by ESPN this preseason, 41% of respondents predicted Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez would slug between 31-40 homers this year. Another 10% called for more than 40. For reference, of the 38 hitters who reached the 30-homer threshold in 2016, only one of them (Evan Gattis) did work as a catcher.

On the one hand, it’s not difficult to understand the reason for that sort of enthusiasm. Sanchez was excellent in 200-plus plate appearances for the Yankees last year, hitting 20 homers and recording just over three wins in a wonderful late-season burst. On the other hand, expecting a player to continue that kind of pace — especially a young catcher with limited exposure to major-league pitching — is probably unreasonable.

I attempted to warn everyone about the pitfalls of such expectations back in March. From that post:

In the fantasy baseball world, only Buster Posey is being drafted earlier at catcher. Generally conservative projection systems forecast that Sanchez will be a star this season. ZiPS pegs Sanchez for 27 homers, a 112 wRC+, and a 3.4 WAR season. PECOTA’s 70th percentile outlook has Sanchez recording 33 homers, a .504 slugging mark, and 4.8 wins. And the Fans’ average crowdsourced projection for Sanchez is a .274/.344/.488 slash line and 5.4 WAR season. The Fans believe, in other words, that Sanchez and Bryce Harper are going to produce similar value this season. …

Even in Yankee Stadium II, Sanchez wasn’t a good bet to repeat his 40% home-run rate on fly balls (HR/FB). In fact, his current mark, just shy of 27%, is still well above average. And while Sanchez could go on to produce a monster second half, the first third of the 2017 season has been a reminder not to draw too much from a small sample.

It’s not Gary Sanchez’s fault he was so good last year. (Photo: Arturo Pardavila III

It’s not that Sanchez has been a poor player to date; quite the contrary, in fact. He’s been an above-average hitter (121 wRC+) at a position where we rarely see such offensive production. He’s having a really good year so far. He’s just not the superstar many expected him to be in his first full season. He’s still one of the more valuable young players in the game, and we know all about his potential. But his .256/.343/.471 slash line better resembles a career minor-league line (.275/.339/.461) produced over nearly 2,500 at-bats than his briefer showing last season.

The exit velocity is still strong (92.7 mph), but his barrel-per-PA rate (5.7%) has become pedestrian.

Sanchez, like all young players, is facing an adjustment period. He’s a threat at the plate and is very much being treated as a threat. The rate of four-seam fastballs he’s seen from 2016 to this season has declined by five percentage points. Pitchers are very aware of his 70-plus-grade power. As of Thursday he was seeing the seventh-lowest frequency of four-seam fastballs in the sport:

Pitchers are throwing Sanchez two-seamers at a rate of two percentage points more often, but what he’s really seeing is more movement and spin. The rate at which he has seen sliders is the 29th highest in the game. And it’s not as if he hasn’t damaged sliders in the past, but his isolated-slugging mark against sliders this season is a startling line of triple zeroes.

Sanchez has a whiff-per-swing rate of 46% on breaking pitches, which is “exceptionally high” as noted by Brooks Baseball. It’s becoming more and more a spin world that Sanchez inhabits, and he will have to prove he can make an adjustment.

Small samples are particularly dangerous in the information age. Teams can identify weaknesses earlier and earlier, and attack them earlier and earlier. It’s incumbent upon young hitters to more quickly make adjustments.

So while Sanchez has failed to pick up where he left off — he actually started to cool down in September — this is perhaps also good time to buy on Sanchez. His plate discipline has remained intact. He’s actually cut his out-of-zone swings and swinging-strike rate. His pair of two-homer games over the past week-plus is a reminder of the power he possesses. His productivity has slowly been on the rise. He would do well to use the opposite field (10% rate this season) as much as he did a year ago (15%) with the smallest right field in baseball located in his home ballpark. He’s been the 50th unluckiest hitter this season, according to Baseball Savant (among those with at least 75 at-bats), so there’s probably room for positive regression, too.

The raw power is still very, very real. He is still one of the more valuable young assets in the game. He is still an important building block for the next Yankees dynasty. But expecting a full dominant season from Sanchez in his first full major-league season, after the opposition has had an offseason and spring to examine him in this information age, was also a risky bet. It was always asking a lot.

While Mike Trout, Kris Bryant, Francisco Lindor and Manny Machado have made breaking into the big leagues seem relatively easy, with the quality of pitching and scouting it has never been more difficult.