I hope that you’re enjoying the top 20 prospect countdown. Starting Monday, we will count down the top ten prospects in the system, with full reports on one player per day.
If you’ve liked the player reports so far, and you find yourself wanting reports like this for other prospects in the system, then you should get the 2016 Prospect Guide. The book has full-page reports on all of the top 50 prospects in the system, along with reports on every other prospect in the system, including the guys at the international level.
The book also features an exclusive article that details “The Next Wave” of prospects who will arrive starting in 2016, and helpful resources such as bonus information for all prospects, evaluations of the last five drafts, and a look at the international guys who could be making the jump to the US in 2016.
We are offering discounts on this year’s book to current subscribers. Anyone with an Annual subscription gets the book for $10 off. Anyone with a Top Prospect Plan (three-year subscription) gets the book for free. We also offer $10 off the eBook to each plan, making the eBook just $5. To get your book (including the free books for Top Prospect subscribers), go to the products page of the site and place an order. The coupon codes for your subscriptions are available at the top of that page.
If you haven’t subscribed yet, you can do so on the subscriptions page. You can also upgrade your current subscription there, in order to get a discount on the book.
Get Your Subscriptions For the 2016 Season
This has been described as a slow off-season. There definitely has been a lot of news for the Pirates, but there hasn’t been much in the terms of big news. Despite this, we’ve managed to have content on the site every day this off-season (with the obvious exception of Christmas day), and most days we’ve featured multiple articles. It’s our goal to provide not only the best coverage of the Pirates’ system, but the most coverage of the system.
With Spring Training approaching, that coverage will only increase. We usually average at least five updates per day from Spring Training, covering both the MLB and minor league camps (the latter of which usually leaves me as the only reporter at Pirate City on 95% of Spring Training days). Last year during the season, we averaged 6.5 articles per day, and often had ten articles per day during the busy months of June and July.
All of this content is available for our very low subscription rates. The monthly plan is just $2.99 per month, which is the cost of a cup of coffee. The Annual plan is $29.99, which breaks down to about $2.50 per month. The three-year Top Prospect Plan is $79.99, which is about $2.22 per month on average. It also comes with the 2016 Prospect Guide for free, which is a $25 value.
We’re the only Pirates site that features live coverage throughout the entire system. That not only includes live MLB coverage, but live reports throughout the year from every minor league affiliate, including a trip to cover the Dominican Summer League, and a trip to cover the Arizona Fall League. If you’re a hardcore Pirates fan, and want year-round news and plenty of updates during the season, this is the site for you. Just check out the subscription page for all of our plans, and subscribe to one of them today.
We also offer gift subscriptions if you know someone who would be interested in this type of coverage for the 2016 season. Those can be purchased on the products page, and include gift packages that combine subscriptions with the 2016 Prospect Guide.
Update on The Pirates Prospects App
Since we switched over to a subscription model, I’ve wanted to build an app for the site. However, that was a difficult task due to the timing of the switch. We made the switch last year at the start of the season, and it was difficult to find a developer during the year. Then the off-season rolled around, which left me busy with the Prospect Guide. Once that was finished, I was able to get to work on finding a developer.
The app is currently in production, and should be completed within the next week. From there, it could take another week or so for it to show up on the app stores. This means the Pirates Prospects app will be ready by the start of Spring Training.
I’ll have more details when the app is released, but here are a few of the features it includes:
**The ability to receive push notifications on your device any time we post a new article. You can customize these to either receive notifications for all articles, or just articles on the topics you choose (EX: Transactions, News and Rumors, First Pitch).
**The ability to favorite articles and read them later, even offline.
**An integrated comment section that uses Disqus, making it very easy to comment on articles from the app.
**A very fast platform which loads articles instantly.
There has also been an issue, primarily with people who access the site via Apple devices, where the site makes you log in each day, or blocks your ability to log in if you don’t allow for cookies. These problems are all related to Apple’s restrictions on the Safari browser, and the app should remove all of those issues.
I’ll have another update when the app is completed and ready to be released.
DraftKings Promotion
The best deal we have for non-subscribers or monthly subscribers is with our promotion through DraftKings. If you’re not already a DraftKings member, you can sign up for a new account through us (using this link), and after depositing a minimum of $5 and participating in a contest, you will get one year of site access for free! You will also have the option to upgrade to our Top Prospect Plan for an additional $50 when you sign up for your new site membership.
If you’re planning on buying the Prospect Guide, this is the best route to take. It would cost $25 for a monthly subscriber or a non-subscriber to buy the book. With the DraftKings promotion, you’d get the book for $15, plus your $5 minimum deposit to your new DraftKings account. So instead of paying $25 for the book, you’d pay a minimum of $20 for the book, one year of site access, and a trial on DraftKings.
After you have signed up for a new DraftKings account (can’t be an existing member), deposited at least $5 in your account, and participated in a contest, send an e-mail to DraftKings (affiliates@draftkings.com) and let them know you are participating in the Pirates Prospects subscription promotion. They will confirm whether you’ve met the requirements, then will contact me so I can give you a coupon code that will allow you to set up your subscription.
