Why Isn’t There More Major League Content Up?

It’s no secret to any of my (admittedly few) regular readers that while this is a San Diego Padres blog, I focus a lot on the minor league system, so I often don’t talk about the major league team for a few days.

Why would I devote so much time to the minors, you ask? Why am I not reporting on each individual game? Why don’t I focus on the big league team more?

Well, let me explain.

I come from the sabermetric school of thought regarding baseball, maybe not as devoutly as some of the guys at Fangraphs or whatever, but strongly nonetheless.

One thing that sabermetrics teaches us is that you can’t get an accurate picture of a player from just a few games. Edgar Renteria, for example, had five hits for the Giants the other day; he barely managed a .600 OPS last year. Good or bad days, weeks, or even months can happen to anyone. Maybe a hitter “hits it where they ain’t” or a pitcher “has it hit where they ain’t” off of him.

So I don’t care all that much if Player X went 4 for 4 or Pitcher X threw six shutout innings. A small sample isn’t much help in telling how good a player is. If I were to report on every small sample a player puts out, the perception of how good that player actually is would shift wildly every few games.

The Padres have 25 players on their roster. I’d rather write one post per year dissecting each’s strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately, definitively concluding how good they are at this time, than write ten posts a year with wildly different stats, opinions, and conclusions. The big picture–what each player brings (and could bring in the future) to the table–is what we want to know.

Obviously, I’m not simply going to post one entry per player and be done with it. Pretty much any roster move gets covered, and any significant and notable trend in a player’s performance will be covered. Also, if any player shows statistically anomalous traits, I’ll write up an explanation of how their “traditional” stats differ from their sabermetric stats, etc.

The fact that I’m going more long-term than most writers with the analysis of the major league roster thus allows me more post space to examine the minors, which are a passion of mine. I think that Padres fans should be greatly interested in the performance of the organization’s minor league players, as the team is currently in somewhat of a “rebuilding” mode (I know, it’s an ugly word, sorry), and the rebuilding efforts are centered not only around Kyle Blanks, Chase Headley, Will Venable, etc. but also Jaff Decker, Logan Forsythe, James Darnell, Simon Castro, and their minor league comrades.

All that said, if you ever want my opinion on anybody, major or minor league, in the organization, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments. I’ll either give you a response in the comments or write up a post specifically about that player. What my readers want to know is what’s most important to me.

And hey, I think that if you want the day-to-day game recaps and recent performance analysis, there’s plenty of places to get it. It’s not like if I don’t cover that type of information, there’s a huge Internet vacuum. I think that sabermetrics and minor league stuff tend to be two things that can easily slip out of mainstream baseball analysis (although both are gaining steam in the mainstream), so there’s more to give a fresh take on in those realms.

I hope that explains the direction of the content here at Chicken Friars. I hope you’re enjoying it thus far and continue to do so!