Most of you are aware that a few weeks ago I decided to step away from baseball writing and the On Baseball Writing podcast. I thought I’d take a second to just briefly update everyone on what led to the decision, and what I’m taking away from the past three years.

Getting the opportunity to write about baseball in the way that I did was a dream come true. When I wrote my first post, I never thought I’d have the opportunity to write at a place like Baseball Prospectus. From the beginning, I told myself that I was starting too late, and I didn’t know the game well enough for that ever to be a reality. Surprisingly, that dream came true, and over the past three seasons I got the chance to write at a number of great sites (Red Reporter, Sporing News, Beyond the Box Score, Call to the Pen, Banished, to the Pen, and Kentucky Sports Radio).

I thought this was something that I would simply do for fun, but would never reach a level where I had much of a platform. To my amazement, a number of editors and sites took a chance on me. This season was so fun and fulfilling, and that made the decision to step away even harder.

I reached a point where the workload simply became too much. I had at least three (sometimes four) weekly columns I was writing. That doesn’t even figure in recording several podcasts per week. For someone with four kids and a 9-5 job, the workload was heavy, but I loved it. Maybe I should have paced myself, but I’m an “all in” kind of person. It’s hard for me to do anything with just one foot in the door.

Occasionally, people would ask me, “How do you have time to do all this? When do you sleep?” I would usually joke with them about finding the time, but eventually the grind did catch up to me. I have a wife that I love, four wonderful kids, and a demanding job that’s fulfilling (pastor). It became apparent that for me to provide those people closest to me with what they needed, baseball writing needed to move to the sidelines.

I’m not saying goodbye forever, but for now this is a season of I need to devote to those closest to me. However, I did want to take the chance to simply say thank you to all of you. Thank you to the editors who took a chance on a writer that didn’t have much of a resume. Thank you to the authors who were willing to appear on the On Baseball Writing podcast. You might not have been able to tell at the time, but it meant the world to me that you’d give me a few minutes to chat. I’ve looked up to so many of you for so long, and the fact that you would spend a few minutes with me was a thrill.

So what’s next? There are still three episodes of On Baseball Writing to be released. Following the airing of those episodes, the show will wrap up. I hope the advice of these world class writers was as helpful to some of you as it was to me. Thank you for listening, for the constant encouragement, and for pushing me to have a voice in the baseball writing conversation.

As I mentioned above, I owe a debt of gratitude to so many people. At the risk of leaving someone out, I do want to thank a few of you by name. Thanks to Ken Maeda, Nick Strangis, Andrew Patrick, Darius Austin, Brandon Lee Alex Crisafulli, Matthew Trueblood and the Banished to the Pen crew. You gave me my first outlet to write, and in doing so you made someone’s dreams come true.

Thanks to everyone at Red Reporter. You were such a fun group to cover the game with.

Thanks to Rob Mains, George Bissell, Bret Sayre, Mike Gianella, Patrick Dubuque and the rest of the Baseaball Prospectus staff. You made me feel so welcome, and my time at BP was a treat. Writing for Baseball Prospectus is something I will always treasure, and I’m hopeful I’ll get the chance to do it again sometime in the future.

Thanks to Ben Lindbergh and Sam Miller for rekindling my love for baseball by creating an incredible podcast and internet baseball community.

Apologies to all of you who have helped me in innumerable ways but I didn’t mention. The list is simply too long to mention everyone.

I’ve learned so much over the past three years. First, I have a new appreciation for those of you who are able to do this day in and day out as a labor of love. I now know something of the work that you put in, and it truly is inspiring. Second, I’ve found his great community of friends that I hope to still be a part of. Third, I’ve remembered much of what I loved about baseball as a kid. Thank you for creating a space where people can connect over this wonderful, beautiful, silly game.

I look forward to reading all of you the rest of the season and for many years to come. I’m not retiring forever, but I’m definitely saying goodbye for now. These past three years were a joy, and I will remember them fondly for the rest of my life.

I fell in love with this game as a young kid because of my dad. Now, I have four young children of my own, and I’m going to spend my time helping them discover their passions. If they find something that brings them as much joy as baseball did me, then I’ll consider it a small win.

Recently, I had the opportunity to interview Doug Thorburn for On Baseball Writing. Doug’s work has been featured at Baseball Prospectus, RotoWire, and RotoGrinders. He also co-hosts the Baseballholics Anonymous Podcast.

You can listen to the episode here.

Baseball fans are going to have the opportunity to see the American League and National League compete on the field this week. However, what if those All-Star rosters consisted of players from the same division instead of the same league? Over at Beyond the Box Score, I wrote about which National League division might be able to field the most competitive All-Star roster.

You can read the article here.

My latest installment of The Buyer’s Guide is now available at Baseball Prospectus. I wrote about Orlando Arcia’s recent hot streak, and his fantasy value moving forward.

You can read the article here ($).

In December of 2014, I did something I never thought I would do. I posted a baseball article online. That year, a small group of fans of the Effectively Wild Podcast decided to start a blog together. Few of us had any experience, but we loved the game. Over the course of the next few months, we slowly and consistently began putting our thoughts about baseball down on a website. It was the perfect opportunity for us to try our hand at something we had always dreamed of.

I had a lot of fears writing those first few posts (who am I kidding, I still do). I felt like I was too old to get started. I felt like I didn’t have a deep enough understanding of the game to write about it. Yet, for some reason, I jumped in. Once I started, the doubts were almost crushing. Would people like this joke? Are fans interested in this topic? Maybe the biggest doubt I faced was, “Why on earth would anyone care about my thoughts on baseball?”

That was two-and-a-half years ago. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about baseball writing. Admittedly, I still have so much to learn. I recently found myself thinking about all I’ve experienced since that first post. What follows is a short list of the things this journey has taught me.

It would be easy to write a post about all of the problems with baseball writing. It feels near impossible to turn it into a full-time job. There’s little money in it for most of the people doing this. It can be exhausting dealing with negative trolls and commenters. That doesn’t even take into account the aforementioned self-doubt you’ll face throughout this entire process.

However, for all of its faults, I can honestly say that doing this has brought me more joy and happiness than a lot of other decisions I’ve made in this life. For all of the bad, there’s an overwhelming amount of good that’s a part of this. Here’s what I’ve learned about baseball writing as I’ve…well, tried my hand at baseball writing.

The Online Baseball Community is Filled With Wonderful People

Over the past few seasons, one of my favorite things to do has been to watch baseball late into the night and follow the conversations taking place on Twitter. There were constantly fun and insightful conversations taking place about the game that I loved so much (yes, I know there are also plenty of less-fun, uninsightful conversations taking place on Twitter too). Sure, there were plenty of discussions on whether a hot dog was a sandwich and bands I had never heard of, but there was also a lot of simple baseball talk. That’s not something I had a lot of in my day-to-day life.

As I sat down to write about baseball, one of the thoughts I had was “How can I possibly fit in with this group of people?” There were so many talented writers who seemed to understand the game much better than I ever would. Why would I think I could be a part of this conversation?

What I found is that the online baseball community is primarily filled with loving, fun, gracious, and helpful people. Once I started, I found no shortage of writers willing to help me out. Writers weren’t putting up walls to keep new “talent” out. Rather, they were extending a hand to help. I found a community excited to help someone understand the game in a deeper way. I found people willing to help me develop my ability to communicate my thoughts about my passion.

This became most obvious to me once I started the On Baseball Writing podcast. There were plenty of moments I wished I could have asked a more successful writer for advice. How did you get started? How do you power through writer’s block? How do you deal with the doubts? I took a shot that others might be interested in these kinds of conversations. With that, a podcast was born, but would anyone talk to me?

I sheepishly began sending out the first invitations. Most of them went to people I had never met. I was blown away by the response. The show is nearing 70 episodes, and I really haven’t had one bad experience with a writer I’ve invited to be a guest. People with much more influence and bigger platforms than I’ll ever have gladly gave away a bit of their time to help this project get off the ground. I can’t thank all of you enough who were willing to help someone get their foot in the door. You have no idea how much it still means and how helpful those conversations have been.

The same thing was true when it came to writing. Occasionally, I’ll message someone asking for thoughts, feedback, or an editorial eye. Time after time, writers were willing to offer their help even when it had no real benefit for them. What I’ve encountered is a group of people happy to lend a helping hand. Don’t let fear keep you from engaging with this community. My experience has been that they are all too welcoming.

It’s hard to put into words how much these relationships mean to me now. I’ve never met most of these writers in person, but some of them have become incredibly close friends. There are conversations I have throughout the day now that never would have happened were it not for baseball writing. Watching and writing about this game has enriched my life relationally. I’m deeply thankful for that.

There’s Room For Your Point of View

I’ll confess, when I started writing about baseball I had a crippling fear that almost kept me from starting. What was it?

I’m terrible at math. Don’t tell my bosses at Baseball Prospectus.

In high school, I almost didn’t graduate because of my work in a statistics course. Luckily, I had a teacher willing to let me come in and clean her room a few times after school to get me up to that all-important passing grade. I’ve always struggled with math, and I thought this would be the thing that kept me from ever writing about baseball.

The work writers have done dealing with advanced stats is truly incredible. I don’t understand all of it, but it’s enriched my understanding of baseball. Thanks to the new tools and formulas that have been created my thoughts have been shaped, molded, and changed. Once I discovered writing like Bill James, Rob Neyer, Baseball Prospectus, and FanGraphs (not to mention many others) it opened up a whole new world to me. I couldn’t explain the ins and outs of what they were doing, but it definitely helped me appreciate the game.

I do what I can now in this area. Admittedly, I skip the sections of a Russell Carleton article labeled “Gory Math Details Ahead.” His intro and conclusion usually give me a pretty good idea of the point he’s making, but I’m not always sure how he got there. Dissecting the numbers and formulas that go into current baseball research is never going to be my strong suit.

My assumption was that this would put a ceiling on my ability to write about baseball. I never dreamed I would be a writer at Baseball Prospectus. What I’ve learned the deeper I’ve gotten into this is that there is a need for all kinds of baseball writers and writing. Yes, we absolutely need people doing work in advanced stats. But we also need storytellers. We need history teachers. We need individuals who can connect the game to the broader social issues of the day. We need people who can write an entire article about crowd reactions to a moment. There’s so much more to this game than math.

Don’t let a fear of statistics keep you from pursuing your passion. There are different kinds of baseball fans. Thus, there needs to be different kinds of baseball writing. Don’t force yourself to be something you’re not. You should absolutely grow in the areas you don’t understand, but don’t be afraid to bring your unique voice and experience to this endeavor. The baseball writing community will be a richer place for it.

Don’t Be Afraid to Jump In

I’ll leave you with this. I’m sure there are people who have wanted to give this a shot, but they haven’t for a host of reasons. My biggest piece of advice to you would be to simply start writing. Start a blog. Reach out to a site looking for help. Read everything you can get your hands on. Your early articles won’t be very good (mine weren’t), but you’ll learn so much in the process.

You’re going to find negative comments and criticism. You’re going to have nights when the words simply won’t come. You’ll have moments where you wonder why you ever started doing this. For all of these difficulties, I truly believe you’ll receive back so much more than this will cost you.

So, just give it a shot. The worst a site or editor can do is say no. It sucks being rejected, but everyone who does this has been rejected numerous times. Doing this isn’t just going to deepen your understanding of the game, it’s going to grow you as a person. That alone is absolutely worth it.

To the new friends I’ve made along the way, I love you guys.

To the people who were willing to help me get started, thank you.

This is never going to be my full-time job. I’m not going to be a beat reporter. I’ll likely never have a massive platform, but I’ve met a lot of really great people who find as much enjoyment in this silly game as I do. That on its own has been worth the late nights staring at a monitor, the fears over negative comments on my articles, and the periods of self-doubt.

These two and a half years have been some of the best of my life. I can’t wait to see what’s in store, and I can’t wait to see what all of you come up with. I’m not intimidated by baseball writers anymore; they inspire me. Keep up the great work, and thanks for letting me have some small part in this.

Recently, I had the opportunity to join George Bissell on the latest episode of Flags Fly Forever. We talked about the fantasy storylines we’ll be paying attention to in the second half of the season. You can check out the episode here.

 

For my latest Fantasy Freestyle column at Baseball Prospectus, I assessed Travis Shaw’s fantasy value moving forward. He’s been one of the most valuable fantasy assets of the 2017 season. Are there reasons to believe he can keep up that level of production? Check out the article at the link below.

Let’s Talk About Travis Shaw ($)