The Bizarreness of Mitch Canham and Brad Chalk’s Seasons

Statline 1: .212/.295/.303
Statline 2: .320/.370/.400
Statline 3: .179/.256/.239
Statline 4:  .313/.375/.388

Notice anything there?

Well, there isn’t much power in any of those lines, to be sure. And, of course, 1 and 3 are dreadful, while 2 and 4 are very good.

The first two lines are Mitch Canham’s AA and AAA stats, and the last two are Brad Chalk’s AA and AAA stats.

Yes, in that order.

Don’t ask me why Canham and Chalk were promoted given their terrible production at Double-A (and Chalk was actually demoted back to Double-A after his good AAA performance) in the first place, but something very strange is going on with their statlines.

I could chalk up (haha, what a pun!) one of these figures to just luck or small sample, but with two players exhibiting similar behavior like this, I have to wonder if something deeper is going on that makes Portland a much better place to hit than San Antonio.

Yes, San Antonio is a pitcher’s park, particularly for RHBs, but a) Chalk is a lefty and b) it’s not the power that’s really changing; it’s the batting average.

Most likely, this is a part luck, part environment, part confidence boost from being promoted, and part some other things (Maybe the Portland hitting coach is better than the San Antonio hitting coach? Maybe some of the veteran types in the PCL are actually easier to hit than some of the younger guys in the Texas League?), but it bears watching. Cedric Hunter’s also seen a pretty immediate statistical boost upon his promotion as well. Is the transition from San Antonio to Portland really this easy? I’ll certainly be keeping a closer eye on it, as well as seeing what happens to Canham (and Chalk, if he ever gets re-promoted, and he’s just 2-for-13 since going back to AA).