MMs - Trading Fundamentals vs Sentiment

Quick question for the pod shop people on here:

I've been in ER for just under a year and have had a bit of exposure to different investors/strategies. In calls with a lot of the pod shops it seems that they are typically very focused on  sentiment of other investors/ super near term outlook compared to other clients with even medium term outlooks.

I've read some of the stuff here about the modeling intensive work and "trading quarters" but I am curious about what the considerations are when making a trade based on earnings. How do you guys balance the potential for earnings surprise to the upside/downside versus the risk of "holding the bag" on a garbage company? 

Curious as sometimes I feel there are these big bets being placed on companies that are (*in my opinion) pretty lack luster with outlooks that are bleak even in the short term.